[whakojacko]

On the flip side (as a casual investor who reads Seeking Alpha a bit in my spare time), I prefer reading financial analysis from people who have positions in the companies they are talking about. Sure they may be biased, but assuming they disclose that properly, I at least know they have their money with their mouth is. If someone writes an article about how great stocks x, y, and z are hasn't bought them, I'm immediately skeptical.

[raganwald]

I'm also a big fan of reading about dog fights from people that have a dog in the fight:

http://raganwald.posterous.com/bias

The big issue I have with the finance industry is that they're incredibly biased with tremendous incentives to talk certain stocks up or sell certain issues to their clients, yet they pretend to be unbiased.

[michaelchisari]

Difference is, talking up your dog in a dog fight doesn't make him any more likely to win.

[raganwald]

As you know, the expression is not mean literally. However, if you bet on the fight and then talk your dog up, you can profit by laying off some of your wager at lower odds or covering by betting on the other dog at higher odds.

There's always some way to profit from a change in sentiment caused by your words. My big point is that I like hearing from people on all sides of an argument (pro, con, neutral), and also that I am disgusted by people who claim to be neutral but in reality profit greatly by abusing the public's trust in their "neutrality."