How TradeandTell works

Trade & Tell is where investors share their real portfolios in the open — timestamped and preserved in a tamper-evident record. Followers subscribe to see trades as they post and read the thesis behind them. It's a public track record for people who actually put their money where their mouth is.

On social media, anyone can post a winning call after the fact and quietly delete the misses. Here, a creator's record is logged as it happens and can't be rewritten later. You're not looking at cropped screenshots — you're looking at a continuous, dated history, losers included. We start tracking from the moment a creator joins, so clever portfolio-porting of baked-in gains isn't allowed. Every gain and loss is calculated from the day you join or report the trade through our brokerage integration or manual entry.

Every position and change a creator shares is recorded with a timestamp and kept on the record. For creators who link a brokerage account, activity is confirmed against their real account — so a Verified portfolio reflects actual holdings, not a paper-trading simulation. We don't include their existing gains; they start from scratch so there's no tomfoolery.

Investors with a real process and the confidence to show it in full. If your edge holds up to daylight, Trade & Tell turns your track record into something you own and can build an audience around — or send an audience to from Substack, Twitter, or YouTube.

Link a supported brokerage for automatic syncing, or log trades manually. Linked accounts earn a Verified badge; manual portfolios are clearly labeled as self-reported, and prices for both match the real-world going rate for each security, option, or short position — so followers always know what they're looking at.

Yes — and it's the most valuable thing you offer. Attach a note to any trade explaining the thesis. Most followers tell us the why matters more to them than the what.

Set your own monthly subscription price for follower access. Payment processing (Stripe: 2.9% + $0.30 per charge) comes off the top, then we split what's left. For subscribers you bring in through your referral link you keep 80% and we take 20%. For subscribers we send you, it's an even 50/50. No monthly fees or minimums.

Connections are read-only through a regulated aggregator. We can see trades and balances to verify them — we can never move money, place trades, or withdraw. We never see or store your brokerage password. We default every account to having its actual balance and total value hidden: relative performance and portfolio allocation are what matters, and we are all on the same playing field whether you have $5,000 or $5,000,000 in your brokerage.

Any account you choose to track shows its full activity — that's what makes the record trustworthy. Accounts you don't link stay completely private. You decide what's on stage; what's on stage is honest. You can group imported accounts by strategy and keep any individual account private for your own records.

Full access to a creator's portfolio, their trades as they post, the reasoning behind each one, and alerts when they make a move.

For Verified, broker-linked creators, trades typically appear within minutes of being detected — not the instant of execution, but close. Self-reported portfolios update whenever the creator logs the trade.

Yes. Headline stats and a portion of the track record are free to browse so you can judge a creator before subscribing. Full positions, alerts, and commentary are behind the subscription.

No. Trade & Tell is for watching and learning — we don't execute trades or touch your money. What you do with what you see is entirely your decision.

You'll see it, in full, in real time — that's the whole point of a public record. A strong past stretch never guarantees future results, which is exactly why an honest, unedited history is worth more than a highlight reel.

The Verified badge means a portfolio is reconciled against a linked brokerage account, so the numbers can't be invented. Self-reported portfolios are labeled as such and are verified just as stringently against real-time market numbers, executed during market hours. Records can't be retroactively edited to hide losses.

No. Creators share their own personal investing for transparency and education. Nothing here is a recommendation tailored to you, and a creator is not your financial adviser unless they are separately and explicitly registered as one. Always do your own research, and consider speaking with a licensed professional before investing.

Browsing and following public previews are free. Creating your own account and sharing it is free. Subscriptions are priced by each creator. On paid subscriptions, Stripe's processing fee (2.9% + $0.30) comes off the top, then we take 20% of subscribers you referred (you keep 80%), or split 50/50 on subscribers we send you.

Brokerage connections are read-only and routed through a regulated aggregator; we never receive your login credentials.