How to Make FinTwit Work for You & Suggested Traders to Follow

Gone are the days where the retail trader was limited to cable networks or expensive private subscriptions for news and discussions about stocks throughout the day.

Twitter came along in 2007 and over the years has become the premier stream for real-time financial information. Past media juggernauts, small bloggers, amateurs and professional traders alike are all on the platform sharing, posting, and collaborating in real time.

But as open and accessible as financial twitter (FinTwit) is, there are lots of ways to get lost in the noise, discouraged, or simply overwhelmed by the firehose of information. Throughout this post, I’m going to share some tips on how to get the most out of Twitter and some trading accounts worth following.

If you’re a trader you need to be on Stocktwits and Twitter

When I speak to traders looking for resources and information to learn from, joining twitter ranks high in my recommendations. This advice is predicated on following the right people, and having a highly tuned radar to sniff out some of the BS, but we’ll cover that later in the article.

Here are a few reasons why Stocktwits and Twitter are amazing resources for traders:

• There’s no better place to expose yourself to a wide range of perspectives, strategies, and terminology.  Twitter is a unique place where you can you routinely find two experienced professionals come to completely opposing conclusions about the very same stock or trade thesis.
• Reduce your learning curve by following people who are further along the path of the trading or investment style that you want to pursue. The amount of free information to learn from and absorb is staggering.
• Save yourself hours of homework and outsource your trade ideas, market analysis, and general research by following trusted accounts that offer some of this as part of their routine.

Make financial Twitter work for you by creating lists, lists, and lists.

Twitter is amazing because everyone is there talking about markets, but that’s exactly why you’ll want to weed out that chatter and focus only on people and accounts that actually bring you value during the times you are looking for it.

I prefer to follow wide but listen narrow. The people and accounts I follow are a mix of personal, business, and professional, and if I were to try and listen to that firehose all mixed together at the same time, it will probably just frustrate me depending on what mode I’m in that moment.

I recommend building lists and adding related accounts together so you can effectively zoom into your stream when you’re searching for specific conversations or ideas.

For example, I have a Trade Ideas list in which I’ve selected a small subset of my follows to browse through when I’m building my watchlists or coming up with new investment ideas.

I have another list, Breaking News, that I’ll keep open exclusively during the trading day so I’m seeing in real-time what kind of potential market-moving headlines are hitting the tape during the session.

Viewing Twitter through lists makes up about 90% of my Twitter activity. I rarely ever just open up twitter.com and turn on the broad stream.

TweetDeck, which was acquired by Twitter back in 2011 is my preferred app for organizing lists and streams, but there are loads of alternatives out there that accomplish the same thing.

Suggested FinTwit Twitter traders to follow

Below is a list of some of the followers that consistently show up and provide value day in and day out. Even better, this list makes up some generally positive and hard-working people.

I’ve surely missed some great traders in this list so for that I apologize, but for anyone new to Twitter, this should be a good starting point. In alphabetical order for traders:

• @alphatrends:  A true market veteran with an extremely disciplined process and an “only price pays” mantra.
• @allstarcharts: Clean long-term charts with a focus on relative strength and a worldwide universe of ETFs and stocks.
• @AMeshkati: Big picture, game theory-like approach is always a refreshing read among conventional technical analysis.
• @AnneMarieTrades: A wonderful teacher, writer, and thoughtful technical trader.
• @AmyAtrade: Great eye for finding clean technical charts and trade ideas.
• @ATMCharts:  Consistently points out the not-so-obvious perspective on individual stocks and trade ideas.
• @Canuck2usa: Possibly more machine than man.  A market veteran that seems to have eyes on everything that’s moving.
• @chartseer: Great eye for technical setups and a stream full of trade ideas.
• @G_Krupins: Great eye spotting swing & position technical trade setups.
• @HowardLindzon: Follow for the comedy. Charts and investment analysis are just a bonus.
• @HCPG: Professional trader sharing market insights and trade ideas on a daily basis.
• @jfahmy: Big picture recaps and emphasis on leading stocks and relative strength is always worth tuning into.
• @KimbleCharting: A true master of charts. If you’re looking for tops, bottoms, and turning points, he’s your guy.
• @kunal00: Disciplined day trader that’s always bringing the energy while finding stocks that are moving on the day.
• @MarkArbeter: Veteran technician who’s been around the block a few times. Great value add insights and perspectives posted routinely.
• @MikeHarrisNY: Quantitative trader that is sure to sharpen your probability and stats skills.
• @PatrickWalker56: 30+ year professional with a transparent process sharing education and ideas routinely.
• @PeterLBrandt:  Has been trading markets longer than I’ve been alive. Even if you don’t trade classical chart patterns, there’s loads of wisdom on his stream.
• @Seeitmarket: Over 30 experienced contributors sharing ideas and market knowledge on a daily basis.
• @sssvenky: Great timely tweets of market-moving stocks, option flows, and short-term technicals.
• @Traderstewie: Market veteran with loads of experience and discipline focusing on a handful of technical setups.
• @ZenTrends: Experienced mid to long-term trend follower with a disciplined process and focus on clean charts.

More macro, high-level market follows:

• @CharlieBilello: Never misses a good market statistic to share and is always curating interesting stats.
• @McClellanOsc: Loads of market experience with a focus on cycles and creative out of the ordinary timing signals.
• @MebFaber: Great big picture thinker on allocation strategies, investment frameworks, and timing strategies.

10/21/20: Rest in peace to Mr. Jon Boorman (@JBoorman) who was a great guy, friend, and consistent trend follower trader.

The downside of FinTwit and pitfalls of Twitter

The drawback of an open-access, free-to-use platform is that anyone can create an account and start broadcasting to the world without any qualifications. That means there’s a tremendous amount of noise to sift through and you shouldn’t blindly trust anyone’s research or analysis without doing some due diligence of your own.

You’ll also want to be very careful not to fall into the trap of awe and envy of someone’s track record or success. FinTwit as a collective is notorious for posting and citing stellar track records that would make even Jack Schwager’s Market Wizards look like amateurs.

Don’t fall into this trap. If someone is consistently broadcasting after the fact wins while simultaneously trying to sell some high priced course you should probably tread very carefully.

Make FinTwit work for you & suggested traders to follow

Twitter can be an amazing platform so long as you curate a positive and helpful environment for yourself. Depending on your trade strategy and time horizon, you may choose to be glued to twitter throughout the day, or maybe just check in on it a few times a week.

Personally, I find it most helpful to stay away from the streams during the day. My primary trading strategy is a systematic and automated approach built in an effort to reduce the day-to-day noise and take a longer-term view.

For this reason, I try not to get sucked into all of the intraday wiggles and chatter about stock moves, so instead I’ll keep a Breaking News stream open to make sure I’m not missing anything big. Once the market is closed, I’ll then open up the firehose and get a more complete feel for the day’s news and stream sentiment as I prepare for the next trading day.

That routine works great for me, but you may prefer a different approach. In any case, I hope you found this post helpful, and if you are brand new to FinTwit give some of those accounts a follow to get started.

Good luck out there and be sure to send me a message @evanmedeiros and say “Hi”. I am always interested in meeting and connecting with fellow traders.