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Reviewing close votes it seems like there is a lot we don't agree on, and basically nothing gets a straight close nowadays unless it's spam. But one topic seems to always have 3 people on each side, give or take: questions about trading that are along the lines of "where can I trade this stock/fund/bond/commodity/option/etc."

This question about where to buy New Zealand stocks in the UK received 3 close and 3 no-close votes

This question about receiving money in a particular trading company in different currencies was 3:1, but I was very on the fence, and the :1 was someone who usually casts close votes from my experience (and hasn't had any votes from the folks who usually cast no-close votes, so it probably will get to 3:3 at least)

That's just two, but there're tons, and they always get a fairly even split. I could've voted either way on both of these, and so figured I'd ask here.

This question on meta already sort of answers part of this, but it doesn't seem to really answer this - and it's quite old. I think it would be really good if we could figure out a consensus - especially one our frequent reviewers would be able to agree on, so we don't end up having a ton of splits and thus questions where half of them are closed and half are left open and it's just a matter of who had time to review that day.

Question: What questions about either trading exchanges, or trading software, are on topic? Be specific.

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Questions about where to trade certain stocks/options/etc. should be on topic, whether it is a trading exchange or a trading platform, so long as it is something that has a reasonable answer and is sufficiently narrow, and not asking for recommendations - only asking for where something is possible to trade.

Good question:

How can I trade AAPL in Lithuania?

Bad question (opinion/recommendation):

What's the best platform to trade AAPL on?

Bad question (recommendation):

Where can I make the most money trading AAPL?

Questions about how to use a trading software are off topic, unless they are about whether a trading software supports a major feature (something that a large number of investors would want to do, such as trading in multiple currencies). A minor feature (which would not be commonly used) or asking for the technical details of using a trading software to do anything should be off topic.

Good question:

Can I buy AAPL on RobinHood using UK pounds?

Good question:

Can I buy UK stocks on RobinHood?

Bad question (techincal how-to):

What menu would I find the Currency Conversion option in RobinHood?

Bad question (too small detail):

Can I label my dashboard charts in green on Robin Hood)

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    "Can I buy UK stocks on RobinHood?" — Why is this a good question? Doesn't this violate the "off-site resources are off-topic because they tend to become obsolete quickly" rule? RobinHood could easily change its policies, and when those policies change, the answers quickly become obsolete. Questions like these should probably be answered by customer support instead of Stack Exchange users.
    – Flux
    Commented Dec 18, 2020 at 5:53
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    I appreciate the thought you gave all this. “Can I buy (specific stock) in (country)?” really feels off topic. It’s either obvious, as in “legally, you can’t” or a request for a broker, as Flux suggests. There are some variations that might pass the threshold, but I think most of these are off topic. As Flux also notes, we used to have a reject reason that a question was too time-dependent, or too specific. It would take some time to look at history to see what members are keeping vs closing. That might help drive a more clear approach to spelling out what’s on topic.
    – JTP - Apologise to Monica Mod
    Commented Dec 18, 2020 at 22:49
  • I agree with most of this, but I disagree that questions about how to use trading software should be off-topic. As far as I'm concerned, any question that is related to personal-finance tasks should be on topic. "What menu would I find X feature" might be better rephrased, but I would vote to keep for instance "How do I set currency conversion options in RobinHood". Only questions that are purely technical and don't bear on personal finance at all (like your "label in green" question, or something like "RobinHood keeps crashing") would be clearly off-topic.
    – BrenBarn
    Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 7:22

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