198. Teemu Hinkula and Alokas chatted about Inderes & its community
I wanted to interview Teemu, a community member of the nomination and remuneration committee, about his role, his experiences, and a bit of everything else, but Teme suggested having a dialogue instead, and so we did on WhatsApp. Just a quick stream of thoughts that surely contains some slips of the mind, typos, and funny phrasings, etc. 
It’s worth noting that Alokas’s and Teme’s chats took place on September 18–20, so before Verneri’s departure.
Morning Teme!
Sometimes I’ve wondered to myself how the Inderes community has changed over the years.
Teemu, you’ve been following Inderes and its community a bit longer than I have. How does the current vibe differ, in your opinion, from what the community was like when you joined the forum in August 2019?
Hi Alokas!
Well, I didn’t even know I’d been on the forum longer than you!
I had to dive deep into my memories to think about this time of mine as a community member. I’m actually a pretty late-blooming forum member, as my first memories of Inderes go back to around 2015. Back then, I used to read reports and watch interviews. I think I followed the investment discussions happening on Facebook, Shareville, and Kauppalehti a bit more back then. Blogs were also a big deal back then.
From that era of Inderes, what first comes to mind is, of course, the material produced for retail investors, but also the nice humor with fool’s caps and flipcharts.
My first forum memories are related to the corona era and the euphoria that followed, when everything you touched turned to gold. That was then celebrated together with analysts while eating hat-cakes in livestreams and getting tattoos on one’s butt. Back then, Qt’s Varelius was still on the forum, @timontti had a different username, and Kamux was doing well, too.
I also remember more serious posts from those times, where someone delved deeper into an investment case using numbers. Those were especially nice to read and very educational.
Like every party, this one was followed by a hangover. The bullshit market arrived and the Hesuli (Helsinki Stock Exchange) became Hesuli. Even the forum’s humor started concentrating first in the coffee room and eventually mostly in the meme thread.
Perhaps this chart describes the forum’s mood sentiment well.
How about you, Alokas, how did you end up in the Inderes community and on the forum? You’ve probably read every single forum post over the last five years—have you made the same observations as me?
Thanks for asking! I only came into the picture in July 2020, right at the point where forum members wanted to show off their YTD returns at an accelerating pace. (That First North chart you posted tells more than a thousand cod losses)
I only started investing myself in 2018, and Inderes started becoming familiar after I got tired of index funds and got excited about stocks. Google results for various companies very often led to the Forum because there was a thread for almost every company with up-to-date information and news. Much like the gateway drug theory, I got interested in index funds, but egged on by Nordnet, I even did some trading… with loss-making success. 
“Before Inderes” and otherwise in the early stages of investing, my information sources were random Google search results, Nordnet, YouTube videos, blogs, etc., but then it just started shifting more and more towards Inderes.
@Verneri_Pulkkinen hooked me into Inderes with his videos and personality, and I got especially excited early on by the Heikkilä & Vilén series (ping @Sauli_Vilen). @Marianne_Palmu was particularly convincing and, much like Verneri, was an “ernu” (an unusual youth) in the investment scene—specifically in a good way.
Right… you asked about my observations, whether they align with yours. In short, yes. I’ve gone “all the way through” the Forum; I haven’t read literally every single post word for word, but I have noticed that the forum appears very different depending on how extensively you’ve read it… e.g., someone who has read 1,600 threads and accumulated a total reading time of eight months knows and understands the forum completely differently than someone who has read 500 threads and three months—let alone a user who has read under a hundred threads and run into a lot of p-topics. (p = politics)
Sorry, I lost my train of thought. Off the top of my head, I’d say that nowadays the average post is higher quality than before, but I have to say that in terms of numbers, specifically in a bad way, I’ve noticed the same thing as you—how much less number-crunching there is compared to before, where you could really tell someone had spent time with their Excels. With numbers, there were also deep justifications included. I really miss those, because they give you more to ponder and provide perspective on the analysts’ or someone else’s views.
Well… I’m bouncing around… and going back to July 2020, there was a carnival atmosphere then, admiring our portfolio percentages… we were all heroes; wild posts, rocket emojis, etc. Then by the autumn of 2022, the funds I put into my portfolio had halved, some people were a bit grumpy, and there was a bit more bickering, but the majority were in a humorous mood and a humor bubble hit the Forum.Humour was here to stay, but from late 2022 onwards, the Forum perhaps slowly began to mature and the quality of the average post improved as political topics decreased and stayed in their own threads; furthermore, the carnival-like atmosphere had subsided as portfolios took a beating (turskatellessa) and the wildest Forum days were behind us. But anyway, I still miss the number-crunching practiced by some… and I miss many usernames… I could name dozens, but here are a few: @Elina_A, @SijoitusSeppo, and the all-too-quiet @Mauri. Do you miss any usernames, and if so, why those specific ones? Have you noticed that certain kinds of company threads have quieted down while others have become more active? And how about Inderes’ staff forum activity, has it changed?
I’ve also been thinking about how, when it comes to Inderes, I tend to mean the staff, the forum members, and those more visible company representatives when I talk about the community. What do you usually mean by the community?
Well, everyone misses Masse, of course. @Arimatti_Alhanko liked to crunch numbers and dig up all sorts of exciting things about companies. Among the Inderes team, @Petri_Kajaani was a true forum legend. Though it probably helped that he happened to have rocket-flying companies in his coverage. He certainly didn’t hide his feelings much either.
Perhaps the atmosphere inside the company has calmed down a bit. But that’s understandable when the market has also been a bit duller. Analysts are put more on the defensive when all buy or accumulate recommendations don’t pan out. However, the operations and communication have become a bit more serious and formal, but perhaps that’s allowed, too. No one needs to be anything other than themselves. Personal brands do play a big role in Inderes’ business model. The community has also expanded. Not only in numbers, but probably also in quality. It doesn’t just include forum members goofing off behind usernames, but also company representatives through events and other investment professionals playing a larger role. Though I suppose the use of humour isn’t forbidden for them either. And you can find great personalities among company management as well.
Perhaps one new feature on the forum is that over time, certain company threads have developed their own unique cultures. That probably poses challenges for the mods? Different behaviour might be allowed in some threads than in others. Has your job as a moderator changed? Is it nowadays easier or harder than before? Does the forum generate more or less work?
Yeah, well, I miss these guys too! Petri certainly drops by to read sometimes, and Arimatti too—he even messaged the Forum in the summer from his ice cream kiosk.
Excellent thoughts on the changing atmosphere, and I think it’s great that you’ve talked about the community more broadly. It’s important that people are allowed to be themselves—however, I want to point out how useful high-profile top personalities are… also from the perspective of the investment case, e.g., I deeply value genuine, personable, and highly competent experts like Verner, Marianne, and Sale even regarding the investment case.
You’re right about those different “thread cultures”, but this has happened before—perhaps just more prominently nowadays. During the carnival season of 2020–2021, the discussion style in hyper-rocket company threads was completely different from, say, Nordea’s thread. When almost every post in a thread is high quality and rich in content, a “lighter” post immediately stands out. In debt-stock threads, on the other hand, only a fraction of posts reach the level of the highest-quality company threads. This poses a challenge.
Moderation work has changed, but not all that drastically… perhaps back in the day the forum had more fiery characters and arguments, but those were often related to political topics and portfolio losses (turskastelu). In a way, the job has become easier, but clearly the vast majority of all work goes unnoticed by forum members, which is really good so that people are “spared” from a lot of things, but on the other hand, it might be good for the public to see what goes on behind the scenes sometimes, because many have a completely wrong picture of things (especially the most vehement ones).
The number of particularly challenging users can be deceiving: behind a couple of dozen usernames, there might be e.g., fewer than six people. Some of the banned users of a certain type have returned with new accounts and/or changed their names. Often the same topics—such as immigration, angry recurring pushes of certain themes, certain kinds of comments about women (and a specialization in flagging female users), and anger—recur in their posts, as well as getting upset. These users also flag those who disagree and like the posts of their own alt accounts or others if they discuss certain matters from certain angles. Some of these have previously even been called Russian trolls by others. This is how a few vocal users can look like a much larger group than they actually are.
But the most time-consuming cases on the Forum that I described above represent at most a permillage (one-thousandth) of the users… if even that, which is good to remember. Luckily they aren’t like people elsewhere on the internet either, and mostly they write mainly in political threads. Those threads have also quieted down, at least based on readership numbers, and there are very few active writers in them. Over 99 percent of forum members behave properly, even though those “permillage-most-difficult” ones make a disproportionate amount of noise. In general; mistakes happen to everyone and that’s okay! We do our job as well as we can. Almost all forum members maintain a polite and friendly discussion culture and do not provoke or get provoked. 
They also reduce the need for moderation by guiding each other both in threads and in private messages—and above all by behaving well themselves. As a side note, I have to say it’s really nice to receive a lot of nice and fun private messages. Mut… now I have to ask directly, you’re a long-time forum member and have been investing for a relatively long time. Is the Forum more beneficial or harmful to you? And how useful do you see the Forum in general for a broader audience? And how has your own Forum behavior changed over the years?
I believe you’ve said before that you manage to react to 95% of the messages to be deleted before anyone even gets to read them! Respectable response time from you, and thanks for that on behalf of the whole community!
As for my own forum behavior, at some point I tried to shift my focus to quality rather than quantity in my posts. Now lately, I have to admit that AI has also reduced my forum contribution, as you can now test various ideas with AI in real-time.
The forum still has its place in my investor universe, though. Especially when it comes to small caps, but also regarding other themes. I particularly appreciate those writers who take the trouble to present their structured views and subject them to challenge on topics they have clearly familiarized themselves with. From them, you can pick up perspectives that you wouldn’t necessarily pay attention to when sparring with AI. Hats off here especially to Verneri, but also to many others. 
How do you see that AI has changed the forum? Has it reduced the need for the forum, or has it brought something new?
Thanks, a lot! Well, sort of, especially before: someone might manage to see a message slated for deletion, but the first readers usually flag the worst excesses quickly, and those are then reacted to. Nowadays, people might also wait a bit longer in some cases, because the writer can edit their message or other forum members can guide them in the thread – and as I understand it, many also do this via DM, which is effective. Plus, sometimes it’s good to observe the situation before intervening. From the flags, you can partly see how a message is received, although you can’t give disproportionate weight to the views of the loudest ones. A huge number of messages are deleted without most people even noticing it. In the long run, it’s also beneficial for the author of the message when the crudest excesses disappear, but their nice messages remain visible. There are several of us with moderation rights, automation also flags messages at times, and people delete their own messages a lot. Sometimes we’ve deleted a couple of messages from someone, after which they’ve gone on to delete more themselves. Outwardly, it has then looked like the mods were much stricter than they actually were. On the other hand, on a general level, way more messages are deleted than many would think.
Teme, your posts always have quality; sometimes you come out with comprehensive, rewarding write-ups, but even your shorter posts bring out important points that most people certainly haven’t noticed, meaning a post doesn’t always have to be long.
AI has changed the Forum to some extent, but in the big picture perhaps more for the better – though there are certainly problems too. The posts of many quality writers are nowadays clearer and have fewer spelling mistakes, but their personal style and content remain the same. With AI, you might, for example, create a chart from self-collected data or look up stuff + learn things. Then there are posts like: “I asked Gemini for an analysis, here is the report.” Those end up getting deleted on a normal day. If repetitive flagging (+guidance) doesn’t help, it may have resulted in a timeout/ban. However, the most blatant cases have decreased a lot. There will certainly be some in the future too, just like the off-topic posts etc. etc. seen since the early days of the Forum.
I don’t know English myself, and Google Translate still translates really incorrectly at times, but especially paid AIs translate text into Finnish well; in addition, they explain some abbreviations and concepts nicely, and they help + guide you on where you can find more information on a subject. They are often good teachers too, but especially in the hands of an ordinary person with a “basic app,” the “analysis” they independently produce often gives pretty suspicious answers that the reader might believe. For example, I make workout routines for myself and ask AIs to check them – mostly good points, but sometimes they make bad mistakes that a less experienced trainee might still believe, so they can be okay as sidekicks, but you always have to be careful with them.
AI may reduce the need for the Forum in the long run; with it, you can learn new things, translate texts, and spar. However, in the hands of an ordinary user, it is not yet such a reliable producer of information that you could dispense with real sources of information and other people. That’s why quality writers who have knowledge, well-reasoned views, and the capacity for good debate are still really valuable. The applications have also offered possibilities for a long time, but utilizing them also requires knowledge, skill, and time. In my opinion, the Verneris, Kinnunens (ping @Juha_Kinnunen) and Mariannes are still irreplaceable. The future necessity of the Forum ultimately depends on how active Inderes and the forum members are – precisely on that activity you were talking about.
Thinking about the Forum as a whole, how do you see its future? Discussion boards seem to be a bit of a boomer thing, being eaten away by social media and all “other possibilities,” such as AI.
Inderes’s clearest competitive advantage over competitors in the analysis business is interactivity between stakeholders. There has been some talk that analysis is also being tailored for AI so that it would use it as a source. However, it is probably difficult to achieve competitive advantages there. Many have probably moved on to brainstorming ideas with AI on the forum. However, that harbors a risk of confirmation bias. One could therefore think that there is still a need to keep humans in the equity research loop to generate new ideas and different perspectives. For this, a well-moderated, high-quality, and active forum offers a good platform that then serves investors, analysts, and companies alike.Do you agree? What kind of added value do you think the forum provides that you can’t get from TikToks and YouTube?
I agree, and there is really nothing to add to the first question. To the second question, I would say that our forum is a high-quality and unique place where different investors, Inderes’s professionals, and company representatives converse with each other very actively and politely - relying on information and well-reasoned thoughts… that’s where the added value comes from. There is simply no alternative to this combination elsewhere. Thanks Teemu, I have learned a lot from you and also got some good food for thought.
Have a great weekend to you and the whole community!
Thanks Alokas, it was nice chatting about an important topic. Have a nice weekend to you and the community as well! 
Thanks @_TeemuHinkula, it’s always nice to chat with you, both on WhatsApp and live!
Indeed, the discussion took place before Verner’s departure and also before that Coffee Room discussion about where the former active forum members are, such as possut, MoneyWalker, DTXL etc. Fortunately, we still have active ones like ekat, timontit, heiskaset, hipit etc. I always kind of hate naming names because there are so many great names that when you mention a few, you’d want to mention a hundred others.
It must be remembered that clearly the majority are silent readers and usually we more colorful characters are more visible - I want to thank and especially remember you dear silent readers too - Our forum has a huge “traffic”, which consists of 98-99 percent of you and the crowd includes a huge number of different wonderful people! 
Have a great weekend to absolutely everyone!
Post-edit: Verneri is then elsewhere next week 
