This system is restricted to users 13 years of age and older. Users who are not 18 years of age may register and use this site only with the consent of a parent or guardian who must consent to the terms of service when asked at the bottom of this page.

BY USING THIS FORUM YOU AGREE THAT NO CONTENT HERE IS INTENDED TO BE NOR IS TO BE TAKEN AS A SOLICITATION OR RECOMMENDATION TO BUY OR SELL ANY SECURITY OR FINANCIAL INSTRUMENT.

ALL MESSAGES ARE SOLELY THE OPINION AND RESPONSIBILITY OF THEIR AUTHOR. TRADES AND INVESTMENTS DISCUSSED HERE MAY INVOLVE THE RISK OF LOSS, INCLUDING THE RISK OF LOSS OF MORE THAN THE AMOUNT INVESTED. PERSONS HERE MAY HAVE A POSITION IN ANY SECURITY THEY MENTION, EITHER OF THE SAME SORT OR EVEN OPPOSITE TO WHAT THEY ARE DISCUSSING, AND MAY OR MAY NOT DISCLOSE THIS TO YOU. YOU MUST NOT RELY ON ANY SUCH REPRESENTATION AS THERE IS NO MEANS FOR YOU TO DETERMINE THE ACCURACY OF ANY SUCH CLAIM.

YOU ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO SEEK COUNSEL WITH A REGISTERED AND LICENSED INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL TO DETERMINE THE SUITABILITY OF ANY INVESTMENT DISCUSSED HERE BEFORE ENTERING OR EXITING ANY TRADE OR INVESTMENT AS IT IS NOT POSSIBLE FOR ANY OF THE USERS OR POSTERS HERE TO DETERMINE THE SUITABILITY OF ANY DISCUSSED TRADE OR INVESTMENT FOR YOUR PARTICULAR INVESTMENT GOALS, RISK TOLERANCE AND AVAILABLE CAPITAL.

This forum exists for the explicit purpose of discussing THE CAPITAL MARKETS (including but not limited to equities [stocks], bonds, futures, commodities and currencies.)

It is NOT a general discussion board.

If you are not here for the purpose of discussing one of the above topics, you are probably in a place that will not be particularly friendly to your point of view or the topics you wish to speak on.

This site has grown significantly since its inception, going from a very small "niche" group of people to a widely diverse population.

Nonetheless, the purpose of this forum has not and will not change!

As such if you are coming here from an external link of some kind that has no relationship to investing or the capital markets, please be advised that you may find that this is not the sort of forum you expected to find, and you may not wish to participate.

It is expected that you will post your messages only in a forum that reasonably corresponds with the subject matter of your message. The system maintains different "forums" or topic areas, all of which have descriptions posted on the top-level page. It is your responsibility to properly categorize your speech.

Some forums may permit you to read them without being registered as a user. You must, however, register to be able to post messages. As such you understand and agree that any material you post here may be viewable by any person anywhere on the Internet, without limitation or registration.

You agree to keep your email address up to date and current. You understand that if the system attempts to email you for any reason and that email is returned as undeliverable that your account may be suspended or cancelled.

If there are one or more pinned topics in a given forum you are expected to have read, understand, and comply with the material therein when posting to those areas. Pinned topics (denoted with a "pin" in the subject line) are placed there by the system administrators for important information that all users are expected to adhere to.

Trolling,"flaming" and "spamming" (the repetitive posting of the same material) is expressly prohibited. Such acts may result in the no-notice restriction or cancellation of your access privileges.

Any action taken to impair the functioning of the system or damage its enjoyment by other users is prohibited. This includes but is not limited to actions such as initiating message "floods", using any robotic device or program to access the system, or intentionally exploiting "bugs" which you may discover. If you accidentally discover some operational misfeature, please report it using the link at the bottom of the top-level page.

Creating of multiple accounts linked to one person (known as "sock puppets") or the sharing of access accounts is prohibited. The system enforces a one account per email address policy; using multiple email addresses to circumvent this policy is not allowed.

Accounts are for your personal, exclusive use. If you are signing in from a shared computer, please do not click the "Remember Me" button on the login screen to prevent the storage of a persistent cookie. Clicking "Logout" will clear any stored cookies that may be on your system for this site at any time.

Commercial exploitation or "mining" of the data on this system is prohibited, and violators are subject to prosecution. This explicitly includes but is not limited to the posting of commercial messages without explicit permission, the "spamming" of users on this board, or the solicitation of users via the private email system contained herein. There may be commercial areas on this board - if there are, you agree that you must read and abide by the policies found in the "sticky" post(s) on that board, if any.

Content that offers or describes the construction or use of destructive devices, firearms, illegal drugs, or any other item or act that is illegal is prohibited. Pornography in any form is not allowed on this system.

Dissemination of material inside information may expose you to criminal and civil penalties. The laws on insider trading are very strict and heavily punitive. If you are in possession of material inside information and trade on it, you are potentially exposed to both criminal and civil liability. THINK BEFORE YOU ACT!

There is no such thing as anonymous speech on this forum. While the forum does not force you to use your real name, when registering, all access is logged and those records are maintained indefinitely. In addition, even if you edit a posting your original text is maintained in the system and can be retrieved. The owners of this system will comply with all lawful service of process requests.

We do not censor "words", but you may. The use of "foul" or "profane" language is not restricted here. By definition investing is an adult activity (you must be 18 or older to open an investment account under your own name). However, the forum does have a "hide offensive words" selection in the Control Panel, and you may also place users whom you do not wish to view on "ignore". If you are offended by the use of coarse language you probably want to turn the "hide" option on, and if there are users who particularly offend you, the "ignore" function will make them "disappear." In addition, if you object to what may be "rough" images, you can shut off all image display as well from the control panel.

We expect you to respect copyrights and other intellectual property while using this system. Reproduction of copyrighted material without express permission is prohibited.

The linkage of images or to any external site that violates any of these terms is prohibited in messages on this site, or in your control panel settings, will be treated as identical to actually uploading such content.

Images that are linked to postings must be less than 50kb in size (each) and no more than 640x480 pixels. Larger images cause disruption of user's display screens and will be removed or the entire posting hidden at any moderator's discretion.

Your account here is a privilege, not a right, and may be withdrawn by the administration of the system at any time. We also reserve the right to edit messages that are deemed offensive or off-topic at any time, and to move messages as we see fit, with or without notice to you. You are a guest on the system owner's property; please comport yourself accordingly.

Since we cannot be everywhere at once, there is a "REPORT POST" button under the user name of each posting on this system in the form of a graphical image that says "Off Topic". If you believe that any posting on the system violates these terms of service, please click this link and alert us. Using this facility will email all of the moderators of that particular forum a copy of your complaint, along with a link to the suspected posting.

You agree and understand that while we will endeavor to respond to complaints, we cannot be everywhere at once, that we cannot guarantee a response within any particular timeframe. The software design on this system does not permit the practice of prior restraint (e.g. "editorial control") As such it is entirely possible that offensive postings or materials that are in violation of these terms of service may exist on the system at any given point in time, and you consent to the potential display of same by accessing this forum.

By posting here you are granting an unlimited, royalty-free license to the system administrators and owners to use your contributions in any compilation, without limitation.

Any violation of these terms of service may result in the removal or "hiding" of the offending postings and/or suspension of your account. Serious violations may result in permanent banishment of your account or even the IP block from which you use the Internet. Apparent violations of the law will be reported to the appropriate authorities.

We have indubitably forgotten something in this document. The owners of the system reserve the right to interpret this document liberally and all decisions made by the administrators are final. If you believe your account has been unreasonably or unfairly restricted, you may use the "contact" link at the bottom of the top-level page to email the administrators directly.

We reserve the right to make changes to this document at any time with or without notice to you. If this document is changed you will be required to agree to it once more in order to sign into the system upon your next login attempt.

You may find a current copy of this document by using the "FAQ" link if you have forgotten what you agreed to. The changes in this text are copied over to the "FAQ" with each revision.

Donations of any size may be made using PayPal. There is a "Donate" button at the bottom of the top-level forum page and also in the Control Panel under the "Contrib" tab. Donations of any amount will cause your account to display in messages with a green star which will remain permanently on your account.

For donations of $150.00 or more in a 12-month rolling period, or $20.00 in the previous month, you will receive a gold star next to your avatar and login ID on the forum, and certain additional features may be made available. At the present time these features include access to our on-demand Video server, a 200 private message storage limit (instead of 20), and relaxed posting restrictions as detailed below.

Note that the monthly donation amount does not roll or "credit" beyond the current month, nor does the annual credit beyond the current year. You can see the totals that the system has for the previous month and year off the Control Panel's "Donate" tab; if there is a running total for the previous year or month they will be displayed under the detail data.

Donors (of any amount) are also exempt from the "immediately after signing up" posting restriction intended to prevent spammers from signing up and transmitting spam for their product or service offerings.

Gold Donors are also exempt from forum "lockdown" periods; typically, one day a week during the trading day the forum is locked to non-Gold donors as a form of "moonbat" control. These days are typically selected for anticipated high volatility or large price movements, and thus higher-than-normal volume.

Note that contributions are explicitly donations - you are not purchasing a subscription to anything here on the site or elsewhere, and donating to the site creates no obligation to you by Cuda Systems LLC or any individual person. Donations also do NOT exempt you from the rules of the forum, including but not limited to any or all of the terms of service. You cannot "buy your way out of ban."

Donations are explicitly non-refundable once made unless they are made in error, and that error is explicitly brought to the attention of the system owners within 72 hours of being processed. If you do donate in error please bring it to the attention of the system administrator immediately using the link at the bottom of the top-level page.

Donations can and will be used to cover the operating costs of the site and may also be to the net benefit of Cuda Systems LLC, without limitation. Cuda Systems LLC reserves the right to refuse any donation with or without cause and attempted abusive donation patterns, or donations that have excessive costs associated with them as a consequence of their small size, will be refunded and the offending account may be banned at the administrator's option.

You can track any and all donations that the system has credited to your account under the "Control Panel" by using the "Contrib" option. Both manually-posted as well as any "PayPal" transactions that have been automatically credited since the first of March 2008 will be listed; if you believe any are missing, please use the private message function in the forum to send a message to "genesis" with the particulars and it will be investigated and corrected promptly.

The system implements a "posting limit" methodology for various user classes. You may post at a given frequency according to the following table:

User Class	Posts	Time Period
Registered	2	Hourly
Donor (any amount)	10	Hourly
Gold	Unlimited	Hourly

Postings are "counted" in real time and the algorythm is fully adaptive. That is, if you are a "Donor" and post ten messages in one hour, the 11th message will be refused. After the oldest message has been in the system for more than one hour, you will be permitted to make one more post. Each post you make will "roll off" from being counted at the interval noted.

The forum contains a number of features on the top level and other pages that will help you customize it to your desires. This section will help you with some of those features.

On the top level of the forum to the right hand side is your "user information pane":

This pane contains your login ID (if you are signed on), the percentage of users who have been active in the last 30 days who have you on ignore (note that it is possible for this percentage to go over 100), your "Long Name", and your email count. If you have private messages in the system the "Read email" link will be present with the first number being the total number stored in your account, and the second being the maximum allowed. If your total stored exceeds the maximum allowed only a system administrator can send to you; all others will have their transmission refused.

The "Control Panel" is your "Grand Central" for forum features. In there you will find settings to control whether you want to be notified of new messages by the system, whether you want the profanity filter on or off, whether you want your "online" status displayed, items per page, and your preferred time zone. You will also find under the Control Panel tabs to view your donations (if you have made any) along with subscriptions (to forums and/or threads), exclusions (forums you do not want to be in the "New Posts" display) and management of your "ignored posters" list.

When signing into the system, you may set the "Remember me" checkbox. If you set this box, then a "cookie" will be stored on your computer which contains a key to your user authentication. This code will remain valid for up to one year, unless you explicitly click "Logout" or clear the cookies on your browser.

All user information you enter other than your email address, password, and current status is visible to other users. Information on your interests, birthday and other data is voluntary and not required to access the system.

Your password and login ID are your "keys" to the system and should be guarded appropriately. You can change your password at any time from the control panel.

When registering for an account the system will email you at the address you provided with a validation URL. This special URL will be valid only one time, and is required to "unlock" your account. Until you visit that URL, your account can be signed into but most functions of the system will be disabled.

For security reasons, if you change your email address the system will temporarily lock your account and issue a new validation URL. You must visit that URL to unlock your account. If for some reason you do not receive this email, you will need to contact the admins via the link at the bottom of the top-level page to arrange to have your account manually unlocked.

You may upload a custom "avatar", or user "picture", to your account via the control panel. The image MUST be 100 pixels wide, and may not exceed 20kb in total size; the system will reject too-big files. (If the image is not 100 pixels wide, it will be resized by the software with almost-certain undesirable results.) Square 100x100 pixel images are recommended. The file must have an extension of "GIF", "JPG" or "BMP" and must be one of those three types for it to display properly. If you have an avatar uploaded, it will display under your name on all posts you make; changes to your avatar will show up on all previous and new postings immediately. You may see your current avatar and either change it or remove it entirely from the Control Panel. Inappropriate avatars or those which do damage to the display of the messages on the board will be removed by the administrator; see the TOS.

This forum system supports a "subscription" mechanism for all registered users. If you have selected a notification period in your user control panel, the system will begin tracking message threads you participate in automatically.

If you subscribe to message forums, then the system will cease tracking new individual messages in that forum, and will instead notify you on all message activity in that forum (whether you were active in that thread or not.) This notification will contain a link to the forum, rather than to an individual message's new content. Note that existing thread subscriptions will remain active, however, unless you manually remove them.

You may also elect to be notified when new email is sent to your personal email box.

Note that if you have selected a notification period then you will be notified only when that period has passed since the last time you were notified, and only once until and unless you sign on again. For example, if you have the "General" forum subscribed to, and someone posts with your notification period set to one hour, you will be notified within one hour of that time. However, if a second person posts, you will not receive a second notification email until and unless you log back into the forum.

If you enable subscription notification, you may wish to sign on with "Remember me" (see below), otherwise the links you are sent by email may be invalid, as many functions will not operate unless you are signed in. If you do not wish to have a persistent session on your computer (e.g. you are using a shared computer), you can avoid this problem by opening the forum before clicking the links in your email; once your browser is open and you are signed on, your session ID will remain valid until it is closed. Note that following emailed links without being signed on, either individually or via the "Remember Me" facility, may either result in the display of error messages (e.g. if you attempt to access your email) or non-intuitive output (e.g. the system will take you to the new posts on threads you are following, but has no way to know where to place you if you are not signed in.)

You may disable notification emails entirely (except for new private emails) by turning off the period in your user control panel; this will not affect existing subscriptions but will prevent any new ones from being entered. You may also go to the "Subscriptions" tab off the control panel and add subscriptions to forums (or your email), or remove any existing subscriptions.

For a new user, notifications and subscriptions default to immediate.

The forum software supports an embedded "email" system. If you have private messages, you can access them from the link which will appear on the top level forum page. Email may be sent from a top-level link as well, by typing in the user's name (on the forum system), the subject, and the message.

If you read a message from a given user, and click on their user ID at the left of their post, you will see their published user information. There is an active link on the button bar to initiate an email to that user on the user details display page.

You read a message by clicking on the top level link displayed. Once you have displayed a message, you may delete it or reply to it directly from the display page - either action will result in you being returned to the email "folder".

From the top level, the system permits "marking" of multiple messages. The selector at the bottom gives you the option of either deleting all marked messages, or emailing them. If you select "email", then those messages will be sent to your registered email address in the system's files for "offline" archiving.

Note that while "email" is stored in such a fashion that it should only be available to your login id while you are signed in, there is no means of guaranteeing that email will not be intercepted. As such if you're concerned about the possibility of interception either do not use the email function or "forward" your email to your own computer system and remove it from the forum.

This system uses cookies to control access and allow you to post and view messages; they are necessary to the operation of the software. Disabling cookie storage on your browser will make it impossible for you to log in, post messages and use the system normally.

This system will store only one cookie on your machine in the form of a randomly-generated number that is used by the database system as a "key". This number can only be linked to your user identification on this system - it is not possible to discern your user login name, password or other identifying information from the cookie itself stored on your machine.

If you check "Remember me" when you sign on, that cookie will be stored on your machine across uses, and will remain valid for a maximum period of one year. You may remove it at any time by clicking "Logout". If you do [b]not[/b] click "Remember me", then the cookie will be set to expire automatically when you close your browser session, but will remain active in the system's database for quicker access. Even if you never log out and have selected "Remember Me", once a year the cookie will expire and you will have to sign back on manually.

You may sign in from more than one computer without the system complaining; however, if you click "Logout" you will cause ALL sessions for your login ID to become invalid, irrespective of what computer they may be on. This is an intentional security measure; using the "Logout" function clears the internal database cookie stored for your login ID, which causes all sessions for your login ID to be invalidated and require that you once again log into the system.

All posts here are archived. Even if you edit a post, any moderator or administrator of that forum can see the original content you posted. That archive cannot be erased except by an explicit administrative action from outside the forum software; it is "write-only". This provides you with both protection against claims by others (including moderators!) that you have posted something "bad" when you have not, and also protects the moderators against claims that they censored something when they did not. However, it also means that your accountability for your words is irrefutable.

We refuse to "snow" you about claims about so-called "encryption" on messages here. A short primer - secure encryption requires at least one key that only you have. A stored password on the system is NOT sufficient, as that password can be easily looked up by the administrator, and once looked up the administrator can query the database directly for whatever he or she wants to look at. Thus, forums that claim to "encrypt" your email on the system are about as secure as someone putting a 10-cent lock on a suitcase. As such all data stored in THIS software is stored in plain text, and we make no claims that an administrator (someone with actual administrative access to the computer on which the software runs) cannot access anything here. If you need secure email, get a copy of PGP, learn how to use it, secure your private key on something only you have (e.g. a floppy disk or "dongle") and use that for your secure email transactions. If the system is compromised by an intruder, or if the administrator needs or wants to get to any content stored here, he or she can.

However, the system does make every attempt to enforce your user permissions against intrusion from the OUTSIDE; to "cheat" you would have to have a valid session cookie from another machine that was left logged in. For this reason if you are concerned about security we strongly recommend that you click "LOGOUT" when you are finished - this clears the cookie not only on your machine but also removes it from the database here, thereby making it impossible for someone to get into your account without your password. We also permit passwords of up to 20 characters, require one of at least five characters, and strongly recommend frequent passwords and STRONG passwords (e.g. those with both letters and numbers or symbols contained within.)

We will not sell, share, or market your user data without your consent. To the extent that commercial entities wish to make offers to you in connection with your membership here, they will be able to do so only via a posting or electronic transmission inside this system.

To help prevent you from being spammed, the software does not display your email address when someone looks up your user ID, nor is it publicly accessible to other, non-administrative users. To further help prevent your email address from being picked up by persons who would spam you, we also strongly recommend that you not post your email address in public messages here on the board. The system will, however, send you emails in accordance with your wishes regarding message notification, and the administrators may, in the event it becomes necessary, transmit an email to all or selected groups of users to notify you about operational issues, upcoming downtime, or other important board-related news. This facility will not be used for any marketing purpose by the owners of this board, nor will the operators make this facility available to outside parties. WE VALUE AND UNDERSTAND YOUR PRIVACY!

We are, however, unable to guarantee the security of your user data on this system. Specifically, it is possible that an unauthorized intrusion into this system, or the service of legal process, will cause the release of some or all of the user data stored herein. You explicitly consent to this risk by signing into and using the system contained here.

You may withdraw your continued consent to this policy at any time by emailing the owner of the system at the link provided at the bottom of the top-level page. Withdrawing your consent will cause your account to become permanently inaccessible and your email address blocked from future registrations; any comments you have previously posted will, however, remain in accordance with our terms of service, and any data already submitted will remain.

This package is a custom software product and is Copyright 2004/2007 by Karl Denninger. It is based on the former "AKCS" software product which was a text-based message forum system written in the late 1980s. AKCS, in turn, was based on a message forum system that ran on the TRS-80 Model IV as a multitasking executive, originally developed in 1982/83. That system broke new ground in several areas, including being the first forum system on a personal-ownership microcomputer to support cross-machine conferencing and email delivery. The original AKCS product was one of the first message systems to support threaded-mode conferencing in a multi-system, networked environment.

The AKCS-WWW package was developed with a primary focus on quick response. Indeed, we believe you will find that in terms of actual performance it simply leaves the other alternative products in the dust. Not only in the area of CPU performance - but also in the performance perceived by the user! This is especially true for users that are not on high-bandwidth broadband connections. There is just no substitute for tight, "C"-based code. Tests have shown that the forum is very usable even from a slow, cell-phone GPRS connection into a laptop - a tough test for any environment.

Unlike most other forum packages, the full-text search facility has almost no impact on system performance when it is used. Indeed, almost all of the overhead is incurred when a posting is made, rather than when a search is performed, in that the indices necessary for the searches are built and updated at that time. Full-text search, however, does have an impact on system storage requirements - significantly more storage is required to store a forum on disk that has full-text indexing enabled.

This product operates on the FreeBSD operating system, and uses Postgres as its SQL database. The SQL transaction functions are heavily used in order to maintain concurrency control and guarantee proper synchronization of data across the various database tables. All data is stored inside the database, including binary images such as avatar pictures - there are no "external" links to filesystem data.

This package is entirely written in "C" as a compiled binary executable, and is data-driven for all user display functions. This permits the almost unlimited customization of the displayed environment to suit the particular forum being implemented for a given function or feature set.

While the web server used here is Apache 2.x, there is no particular tie in the product to that architecture. The CGI interface is, however, heavily used and MIME/multipart form upload support (that works correctly!) is required in order to handle binary image uploads (such as avatars.)

There are no known specific web browser constructs used in the base distributed display templates, but as the author is unable to personally verify all available browsers, correct operation across all former, present and future browsers cannot be assured. No particular attempt is made to support text-based browsers such as LYNX; this software is inherently a graphically-rich environment, and as such no special attention has been paid in the base template files to enhance for or accommodate text-only displays.

This package is under current development and the feature set is expanding on a regular basis.