The Dow Moved 1,000 Points…and StockTwits Helped Me Through The Madness

Posted by Howard
on September 18th, 2008

Crazy day indeed.

I am hearing that it was total madness on CNBC. The market won’t be fixed until CNBC goes away. We live in very disturbing times when people still must get their financial news from a criminal enterprise. I commented at one point on twitter that I saw 16 faces in boxes on CNBC during a trip to the pisser. Sixteen talking heads blabbering at the same time is not a conversation…it’s noise. Worse yet, they are monitizing the noise on your eyeballs to create…more noise with more bells and whistles. CNBC has not evolved in 10 years. CNBC.com has evolved less. It’s pathetic. CNBC will never evolve into something good for investors because the stock market is about reducing noise, zigging while others are zagging and doing less. If the government is to do one thing from this meltdown it would be to regulate this incessant, one way noise.

This is not a rant about CNBC though, because I remain quite content that CNBC exists as it allows me to print money into the vaccums it creates, especially in weeks like this.

On the other end of the spectrum, I am amazed at how calm, helpful, friendly and conversational the StockTwits.com community has been the last few days.

From a simple iPhone application (Twitterific), I was able to have an unbelievably deep feel for the madness of the market – today from the golf course no less. Of course, I always make my own decisions, but by being in touch with the best minds I know in the business, I played golf and traded without a hint of real noise and loss of concentration.

I am the ‘Guinea Pig’ of this experiment. I prefer to always put my time and money where my mouth is. It’s very hard to explain in a blog post where this community can go, but I will keep trying to point out the features and benefits.

The community has eavesdroppers and contributors and it always will. My job and Soren’s is to convert the eavesdroppers into contributors. We don’t need tricks because there is no rush. The beautiful thing about StockTwits is your ability to control the flow of information.

I wanted it loud the last few days, not so much by the amount of people, but by the amount of conversation from the people I trust and follow. You know what I did…I ASKED THEM! They obliged. I made money and leveraged my time. I won’t always make money, but I want to leverage my time. You want to leverage your time. Financial leverage is bad. It will break you. It has broken our system. Time leverage is good. I want to leverage my time 1 billion to one.

StockTwits is not a message board and not a forum. It is not any one thing. It is a community of minds sharing ideas about the stock markets (the biggest mind of all) with a REPUTATION system on top. The reputation system is not perfect, but it’s not primitive. The noise has a face and even though that face may be an avatar (I wish it did not, but I understand why people need to be anonymous some times), that avatar has a reputation. That avatar has a history that you can track pretty easily.

I hope you get involved and at least eavesdrop. You won’t be able to help yourself and contribute.

The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.