Inside Brett Klasko’s World

Market volatility pays

By Joseph N. DiStefano
Sunday, April 1, 2001

When online brokers reported a dip in investor interest as the stock market fell, Brett Klasko, a Cherry Hill Web site operator, says he is seeing the opposite phenomenon.

“When the markets are real volatile like they are now, people want to read about exactly what happened to their stocks — and more so, they want new investment suggestions,” said Klasko, who operates the InvestorsAlley.com Web site — with help from classmates at Cherry Hill East High school, where he is a senior, and unpaid correspondents across the country.

“We get approximately 10,000 [hits] a day when the market is volatile like now, compared to about 7,000 a day” when the market is rising, Klasko added.

Worst of all is when the market goes flat, Klasko concluded. “People just lose interest.”

Klasko, originally backed by his father, a Philadelphia lawyer, said his site began paying for itself last fall thanks to advertising and arrangements with paid trading sites.

He is looking to hire a full-time chief executive officer or to sell his site — so he can attend college.