Hi all! So, I've been very much dreading creating this thread. But, as I have just a few minutes of free time on this afternoon, I thought now would be a good time to get this out there once and for all. As some of you might know by now (as was mentioned here a few weeks ago), I have been contemplating bringing an end to the stock games and possibly even this forum in the near future. It really pains me greatly to even have to say it, but as some of you I'm sure have noticed lately, my time on the forums nowadays has been dwindling to almost nothing. I barely get time for this site anymore unfortunately. Truth is, running the stock games here everyday has been an incredibly huge burden on my shoulders. I know the few of you who do participate on them really enjoy playing them. But, the reality is that it has been really difficult for me to get on to update them everyday. Thus, I may very much need to bring the games to an end in the new year. Really so sorry about this. Additionally, running and maintaining this forum everyday has also been very time demanding on me. I try to get on to update things daily but it's been extremely challenging if I'm being honest. I hate to have to close up shop here, but it's something that may need to happen in the future if things continue going in the direction as they have been for me. Truth of the matter is I hardly follow the markets anymore. Hence, I don't trade and haven’t traded in ages it feels like due to my very busy daily life. Furthermore, in about 5 days from now my sister is expected to give birth to a baby boy. Which is going to further complicate my time situation even more than ever. I think for now I like to continue keeping this forum online, even if I'm not able to get on to update things daily. But, for sure I think the stock games will need to either end or take an extended break starting next year...at least until I'm able to get back to some semblance of normalcy again with my time situation. Which admittedly doesn't look like will happen anytime soon yet. Really hope all of you a very happy holidays! I hate that I had to put out this kind of post here. But, I just needed to inform all of you of my situation right now, and why I'm hardly online or post anymore nowadays. I wish things were different, and I could go back to old times of watching the market and trading everyday. But, as with life nothing ever stays the same forever. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this post guys! Really cannot thank you all enough for keeping this forum afloat over the years for this cannot be said enough times!!! I'll try to provide one more update in here before year's end. But, please do bare with me as my time truly is very limited right now. Merry Christmas and a Happy, healthy and prosperous 2025 to all of you who frequent this board!!
Happy Holidays Cy. I missed this post until now to be honest but I think you have mentioned about it on another thread as well. If you changed your mind then it would be great but I totally understand if you decide to end the stock game or even closing this forum up. I am hoping you will keep this forum running but if you are too busy then I guess we can't help. Anyway, really appreciate what you have done for the last several years and provided so much information on the stock market daily
@bigbear0083 Cy! We see that you have a lot going on in your life. Congrats on the newest family member! Happy New Year! Also, I wonder if there's anything that can be automated, or automatically update the charts/data- so that it would require less effort from you. Possibly Google Sheets, MS Excel (Azure), an A.I. platform, Zapier, etc. could assist. I could assist too if there's anything that you need that I could help with. I truly enjoy these and it would be very interesting & even more fun if we could get a larger pool of people to join. I look forward to updates from you & hope that we can continue this site. If you need to take a personal break, I'm sure that we all fully understand. Happy holidays.
Totally understand everything you said. Thanks for the site and the contests all these years. You really need to do what you have to do. Have a great rest of the holiday season
Hey if anyone has a quick minute on them, I'm testing out a potentially new method to play the market games. Can any of you see if you have this link working? - https://stockboards.ddns.net/home/forums/DailyMarketDirection It will immediately prompt you with a username and password box. Just enter the letter "b" for each to enter the site. I may need to use this new method for running the stock games in the future due to not be able to update and create the threads on the forums anymore due to my time situation this year. I believe this link should also work in bypassing the username and password prompt box - https://b:b@stockboards.ddns.net/home/forums/DailyMarketDirection
^^ This is just a test run for right now, and not something that I will use immediately. I believe this new method could help me to automate things a little better than they are right now. Unfortunately, I just don't have time to run this anymore. And need a lot of help to either automate this or trying out different methods to continue with this. Really sorry about everything everyone.
Testing out a new format for the daily market direction game. Please see this thread linked below: https://stockboards.ddns.net/stocks...ew-format-2025-daily-s-p-sentiment-poll.2730/ How I intend for this to work is to cut out the process of having you guys "post" votes on the threads. This will help me a ton as it will no longer be necessary for me to create individual daily market poll threads. It was admittedly extremely time demanding for me creating those every week. Instead, I will just have 1 running thread for this. And for each new market day the first post will be updated so you guys can cast your votes for the next market day, etc etc. It will work much like the weekly game. Where you just simply choose your username in the drop down menu, and select the market direction of your choice on the Google Form. Let's test run this for next week and see how well it works. I desperately need to find a new method to continue running the games as I just don't have the time to run them anymore. Really so sorry about this everyone.
^^ It's worth noting that similar formats will also be implemented for our other games such as the weekly and quarterly games. Where one thread will be used, and participants are to just vote via the Google Form, cutting out the process of posting votes on the threads.
Furthermore, starting from the week of January 20th I will no longer be creating the weekly market discussions threads on a weekly basis. I will just be using one continuous thread. Additionally, @StockBoards Bot will discontinue posting updates starting from next week as well. Again, really sorry about all of this but it is something that I need to do at this time as I just don't have the time for this anymore.
Well, after a week long test run of the new formats this week, I've decided that it's probably a little easier and even a little less time consuming for me to just revert back to the original formats that we had going previously. So, from next week we'll just go back to the format that we had running all along. I think it shouldn't be too bad for me but if things should get hectic for me again I'll be sure to give you all a heads up and what I intend to do next. Thanks, and sorry for the back and forth on the formats here the past few weeks! Just trying to find a happy medium that I can roll with that isn't too time demanding given my crazy busy life nowadays.
