Last week we welcomed three prospective members and three current members (schradertrader, johnnieblack, and GEM) into our office in Cambridge, MA to see what they thought of the usability and design of the site. We found out that, while UpDown.com has come a long way since it launched last September, there is still a lot more to be done.

Here are three highlights from the interviews:

1. Improving trading on UpDown is our #1 priority right now. It seems like everyone on UpDown has a good idea for how we can make trading even better, and that is fantastic! We are working on putting all of your ideas together for our upcoming deployments of trading upgrades. We may be a small team, but we are doing everything that we can to give you what you need as soon as possible.

2. We are also working on making the content on UpDown more valuable to you. This means, for example, delivering member submissions to you from people whom you respect, so you do not have to sort through irrelevant (and annoying) analyses ever again.

3. The quote of the day came from a prospective member, who said, “So…you want members to actually be able to invite friends to the site…right?” He said that after struggling for several minutes to invite his friends to UpDown. That shouldn’t happen. You will see a clear effort on our part to make inviting your friends easier and to clarify how you can earn real money from doing so.

Thanks again to all of our participants and to everyone who has given us their feedback. Keep your ideas coming!

Brendan, UpDown Team

A Seeking Alpha contributor wrote this morning that July 15th marked the end of the long bear market for financial stocks and “the beginning of the greatest financial stock bull market in our lifetime…”

Do you think he is right?

The UpDown Team

e need to clarify the issue of having multiple accounts on UpDown. Given the arrival of the Contests feature, we understand that demand is higher than ever for the ability to manage multiple portfolios under one account. Some members are responding by creating multiple UpDown accounts in order to have access to multiple portfolios to use for categorized contests (i.e. only green energy stocks, ETF’s, etc.) and for testing several investing strategies.

We are already working on making it possible for you to manage multiple portfolios and to designate one of your portfolios for earning real money. Once this is in place, you will be able to participate in all of those special contests and test all of your strategies, while still having the opportunity to earn real money for your performance.

In the meantime, we ask you to refrain from claiming money on multiple accounts on UpDown. Doing so would be an attempt at getting paid multiple times for your performance, which would not be fair to everyone on the Community. If you do claim money on multiple accounts, we will ask you to keep one of your accounts and to shut down the others.

Thank you for your cooperation and stay on the lookout for this upgrade. It is coming soon!

The UpDown Team

Here is a list of the stocks bought and sold most by the top 100 members on UpDown.com from Monday July 14th through market close on Friday, July 18th.

Top 5 Stocks Bought

1. FRE - Freddie Mac (NYSE)

2. SKF - Proshares Ultrashort Financials (AMEX)

3. QID - Ultrashort QQQ Proshares ETF (AMEX)

4. GOOG - Google Inc. (NASDAQ)

5. PHM - Pulte Homes Inc. (NYSE)

Top 5 Stocks Sold

1. MBI - MBIA Inc. (NYSE)

2. UAUA - UAL Corporation (NASDAQ)

3. MER - Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. (NYSE)

4. FNM - Fannie Mae (NYSE)

5. MTG - MGIC Investment Corp. (NYSE)

Relevant Analyses:

Analyst Consensus: Sell (Short) FNM by tijis311

To the apparent lack of knowledge in mass behavior by gavargas

Invest well this week!

The UpDown Team

The summer is flying by and fall is just around the corner. Check out this article on Seeking Alpha to get a few ideas on how to profit from the upcoming back-to-school season.

The UpDown Team

e have another good post from Diversifier in The Official UpDown.com Group about some basic strategies to profit in today’s market. If you have been struggling with your portfolio so far this year, we suggest that you check it out!

The UpDown Team

e would like to highlight the thoughtful post written by Diversifier in The Official UpDown.com Group on American consumption and the future of our economy.

Do you agree with him? Join the Group Discussion!

The UpDown Team

e made three upgrades to UpDown.com this morning:

(1) We redesigned your Home Page to give you faster access to your portfolio, interesting information on stocks you own, your contest standings, and to other UpDown members.

(2) We added a message board to every contest to improve communications between you and your fellow competitors.

(3) We added a “Sponsored Contests” tab to the Contests section to make sure that you don’t miss out on any official contests with great prizes.

What do you think of these upgrades? Please let us know!

The UpDown Team

e want to assure everyone that we have not restarted all portfolios on UpDown. As part of our deployment of several upgrades this morning, every portfolio displayed a value of $1,000,000 for a short time. That time has now ended, so everything is right again!

What do you think of the new look of the home page?

The UpDown Team

e have put together a list of the stocks bought and sold most by the top 100 members of the UpDown.com Community from Thursday, July 3rd, through market close on this past Friday, July 11th.