I’m sure Dave, the founder of StockTickr is thrilled to get his site written up in the Wall Street Journal. (You heard it here, from me, first way back in 2005!) The Journal has an article in today’s issue titiled “A New Way to Rate Stock Tips: Crop of Networking Sites for Investors Track the Performance Of Users’ Picks; Finding Your Market Soul Mate“. Here’s a snippet:

Individual investors are finding new ways to swap stock tips.

A new generation of Web sites has cropped up in recent months designed to help investors share ideas online with others who have similar investment styles, such as which Asian stocks or technology issues offer the best value. Unlike the Internet chat rooms that were popular in the late 1990s, which allowed any anonymous user to post opinions, the latest sites seek to maintain their credibility by rating participants. Users are assigned a score based largely on the performance of their stock picks and the accuracy of their forecasts.

They cover sites like:

Richard from the Move the Markets blog got quoted in the article:

“Trading is a lonely profession,” says Richard Todd, a 29-year-old day trader in Dallas, who uses StockTickr. “Serious, active full-time traders tend to flock to sites like this because it gives us a chance to interact with people and we can talk shop all day.”

Edit: Dave informs me that Joey, who’s also quoted in the article is none other than fellow blogger Downtown Trader.

Second Edit: In related news, StockPickr just did a deal with TheStreet.com Loads of coverage for this sector today. When it rains, it pours.