TickerHound

What types of Questions can I ask?

TickerHound is a completely open Q&A engine – that means we don’t tell you what you can ask or can’t ask.  If it’s a finance or investing question that you’d like an answer to, go right ahead and ask it.

It can be as basic as, “Which stocks are in the Dow Jones Index?”.

Or something as complex as, “How does a calendar spread work and why would I use one?”

Just make sure you show some love back and answer some questions out there too.  If you’re even on this site it means you’re a fairly intelligent person and you should try to give back every now and again by helping other investors enhance their investing knowledge base.

The more you ask and the more you answer, the better the site will be for everybody – especially for you!

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How often can I ask Questions?

Ask as often as you’d like!

We know some of the other Q&A sites out there limit you to a few questions per day, but you won’t see that here!

TickerHound really is an open Q&A exchange and we won’t limit you in any way, shape or form.  So ask one question a day, or five questions per day, it’s up to you.

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How do I ask a Question?

Asking Questions is really easy - we don’t have any complicated options or fields to fill out.

Just enter your question title (e.g. “What stocks are in the Dow?”). Then, if you think your question requires a little more clarification, then we let you enter some details to it (e.g. “I know the Dow has 30 stocks, but how often do they change and what types of companies go into it? Is it limited at all?”).

We also give you the option of “tagging” your question with stock symbols. This makes your question easier to find and will ensure you get better answers from more qualified investors (e.g. those who follow specific stocks). You can even type multiple stock symbols by separating them with a comma (e.g. CSCO, GOOG, AAPL).

Then simply select a Category (e.g. General Market) and click the “ask” button...

And that’s it!

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What if my question is on a specific stock?

Many of the questions on TickerHound have to do with specific stocks. So we’ve added the ability for you to “tag” your question with relevant stock symbols.

This helps investors who follow specific stocks to easily find your question and provide you with the best answer possible.

All you have to do is begin typing the company name or stock symbol and TickerHound will show you a list of relevant symbols and companies - then simply click the one you want and it automatically gets added to your question.

You can even type multiple stock symbols by separating them with a comma (e.g. CSCO, GOOG, AAPL).

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How can I see questions I’ve previously asked?

After you log in to TickerHound then click on the “My Profile” link at the very top of the page.

From there you’ll see two lists toward the bottom of the Profile screen – one list is of questions you’ve asked  and the other is a list of questions you’ve answered.  If you don’t see your question there then click on the “view more” link to see a complete list.

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Who’s going to answer my question?

Other investors just like you!

That’s the great part about TickerHound, it’s not about getting one answer and leaving.  It’s about getting several answers from several different types of investors.  So you’ll get to view a problem for many different perspectives before deciding which makes the most sense for you.

When evaluating your answers we wanted to make it as easy as possible for you to tell how qualified the person answering your question was.  So directly to the left of the answer you can see the other member’s profile image, the number of points they have earned and whether or not they’re a Top TickerHound in a particular category.  For instance, imagine you asked a question about refinancing your mortgage.  When you went back to the page you saw that a member that’s rated number 1 in the Real Estate category replied to your question – more likely than not, that member is going to give you the answer you were looking for.

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How will I know when my question has been answered?

TickerHound provides you with two forms of notification:

1. E-mail:  Each time you receive an answer to your question you’ll get an e-mail at the address you used to register for TickerHound with.  In that e-mail you’ll be able to click on a direct link to the answer you just received. (note: if you’re not receiving your notification e-mails please check out the E-mail section of the FAQ).
2. Web site Notifications: If you’ve received an answer to a question, then next time you log into TickerHound you’ll see a “Notification” message at the very top of the web site.  Once you click that link you’ll see a list of every answer your question(s) has received.

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How long will it take to get answers?

It really depends on a number of factors:

1. What day of the week you asked your question on (weekdays tend to be more active, so you’ll get more responses in a shorter period of time.
2. Which category your question is in.  Some categories, such as Latest News, are inherently more active than others.
3. How clear your question is.  If you ask a vague or ambiguous question it’s not very likely you’ll see many responses if at all.

So the best thing you could do to get your question answered faster and more frequently is to work on how well you craft the question to begin with.

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What should I do after my question has been answered?

After you’ve received a few answers to your question you can do a number of things:

1. Vote on each of the answers by clicking the “Great Answer” button.  This will help the people who answered to get ranked higher on the Top TickerHounds listings.
2. You can choose which answer you think is the “Best”.  To do this all you’ll need to do is click on the “Best Answer” button and then that question will get moved to the top of the page under the “Best Answer” headline.

If you don’t get any answers within 2 weeks the question will be removed from the system and you can try asking it again – however, we do recommend you rephrase the question title and description.  This will help you to get better responses next time.

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What if I don’t get any answers?

If you don’t get any answers within 2 weeks the question will be removed from the system and you can try asking it again – however, we do recommend you rephrase the question title and description.  This will help you to get better responses next time.

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Can I go back and edit my question once I ask it?

While we don’t currently offer this feature it’s something we’re actively working on and it will be coming out onto the site soon.  In the meantime, we recommend you wait until you receive a few responses before going ahead and asking the question again, albeit in a slightly different way.

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Why can’t I reply to people who have answered my question?

TickerHound is not a discussion board or a forum.  It’s not a place for long drawn out discussions that never get resolved – there are plenty of places like that on the web and we’ve seen how ineffective they’ve become at educating investors.

We want TickerHound to be the first place you come to when you need financial advice – therefore we knew it was important to restrict the site in some ways.

By not allow a lot of “back and forth” it forces our members to ask their questions in the most succinct and clear way possible.  It then forces other members to answer that question in the same manner.

This allows the site to act more as a knowledge base of finance and investing information.

It’s like walking into a room and having a conversation with an intimate group of professionals where you extract only the information you want.  Compare that with walking into a crowded auditorium and trying to listen to several people on stage talk all at once while you try to have a discussion with each of them – it just isn’t going to happen.

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What if I have another question related to my original question?

Great!  We hoped you would.

Simply click on the “Ask a Question” link and ask your new question – you could even make reference to the original question by inserting the link in your new question’s “Details” section.

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