Investing Out in the Open

As the recent financial fun has shown, investing can soon turn into an ungrounded exercise in fantasy wealth creation based on trickery, deceit and general exploitation of ignorance. Part of the problem is the lack of openness.

So here's an interesting idea from a company called Covestor: investing out in the open.

Covestor is not a bulletin board or fantasy trading game, it's all about actions. Covestor is about real-trades, real people and real results - where you can both build your credibility and see what other real people are doing to achieve their goals. Secondly, it's about helping people make more money by leveraging the hard work that is already being done. Of course, discussion is part of the investment process.

Many of our members also have their own stock blogs and are active on discussion sites. Our role is not to replace that, but to help add trust to what they are saying elsewhere.

Ah yes, trust: that's the glue that holds the opens together; it's also the stuff that, in the financial world, was melted down and sold off like lead from a church roof. Let's hope that Covestor can get its idea to, er, stick. (Via Mark Taylor.)