Why this site gives no stock tips, and how to judge any tip you meet

This page is built from public data and exists to help you look things up: the all-share index as a broad measure of the market, and a quick code lookup for shares listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. It does not tell you what to do with your money. That is a deliberate choice, not an omission.

A tip is a claim about the future dressed up as a fact. Nobody can know the future of a share price, an index level or a company's fortunes. Anyone who presents a guess as a certainty is selling something, and it is usually attention, a product or a position they already hold. A site that stays silent on direction avoids the temptation to sound confident where confidence is not warranted.

Questions to ask of any tip

When someone offers you a view on a share, treat it as an argument to be tested rather than an instruction to be followed. A few plain questions will filter most of what you meet.

• Who is speaking? Is there a named person with a traceable record, or an anonymous voice on a forum or messaging group? Can you find the same claim repeated elsewhere, or does it appear only in one place?
• What is the conflict of interest? Is the writer paid by a company they discuss, employed by a firm with a stake, or rewarded for generating clicks? A tip that costs nothing to give can still cost you a great deal to follow.
• Are positions disclosed? If the writer already owns the share, their view is not neutral. Disclosure does not make a claim wrong, but its absence is a reason to slow down.
• Is there a time frame and a reason? A claim that a share will rise is meaningless without a horizon and a mechanism. What would have to happen, and by when, for the view to be right?
• Does it match your goals and tolerance for risk? Someone with a long horizon and spare capital is not you. A view that suits their situation may not suit yours, even if the reasoning is sound.
• Is it diversified in words? A tip that pushes you into a single share, sector or theme concentrates risk. Spreading exposure is a basic defence, and a tip that ignores it is asking you to carry more risk than you may realise.
• Can you check official disclosures? Announcements and financial reports published through the Johannesburg Stock Exchange are the primary record. A claim that contradicts them needs a very good explanation.

Unlicensed advice is a warning sign

Advice given without the appropriate licence is a warning sign in itself, whatever the confidence behind it. Regulation exists so that people who offer advice carry duties and can be held to them. Where a view comes from an unlicensed source, you have no such protection and little recourse.

Use this site to check codes and read the index. Judge tips by the questions above, and treat silence on direction as a feature rather than a gap.