Keep Shining, Jon Boorman
that he didn’t experience much pain, and for all intents and purposes, was able to live a “normal” life until the fateful day arrived. And boy did he take advantage of the time he had left.
He traveled the world, seeing many of the places he’d always wanted to visit, and traveled great distances to see his favorite bands one last time, often taking his young son along with him. He and his family made the most of this time and it was truly wonderful to see and follow along vicariously through his Twitter account (which is still active @jboorman).
Back in my early days at StockTwits when I was charged with finding and elevating smart and engaging voices in our community, I came across Jon. He was an early adopter in social media, but was struggling to find an audience.
I was immediately drawn to Jon for his no-nonsense approach to a trend-following trading mindset, the fact that he left the comforts of a big bank to trade and manage money on his own, and most importantly because he was the lead singer of a rock band! This was a guy who had a lot to offer!
And when I had an opportunity to meet him in person for the first time at the very first Stocktoberfest event in San Diego in 2012, we immediately hit it off!
From that time forward, we stayed in touch. We engaged on social media (both publicly and privately), via email, and at various industry events over beers. I even had the great pleasure of hosting Jon as one of my very first podcast guests – which was one of the standout highlights from the entire series of interviews I conducted for StockTwits over the years. I’ve dug it out from the archives for you to enjoy here:
In addition to being a great guy, I learned a lot from Jon. His blog was a must-read for me when it was active. And his approach to risk management completely resonated with me. In fact, one thing that I’ve adopted from Jon that I still employ today is his focus on closing prices. He would often preach that as a swing trading trend follower, the most important price each trading day was the closing price. He didn’t want to get whipped out of a position due to intraday noise by traders trading on a different timeframe than him. No, he knew that the closing price is the one that “gets printed in the newspaper” and the one that everyone has to think about overnight as they prepare for the next trading day.
To this day, while I trade a different product than him (he traded stocks, I trade options), I still wait for closing prices to decide whether or not to exit on the next trading day.
In December 2020, a bunch of traders, friends, and family members of Jon traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina where he lived to get to enjoy Jon’s final show as the lead singer of his band. It was a bittersweet but absolutely lovely time and Jon ROCKED THE HOUSE! I even had the great and unexpected opportunity to jump on stage and play bass with the band for a cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” For me, it was truly special.
Here’s a grainy photo of me and Jon, taken that night at the conclusion of his gig:
Sadly for me, this was the last time I got to be in his physical presence.
Jon, thanks for the lessons, friendship, music, and memories.
For those of you who knew and remember Jon, please keep him and his family in your thoughts this weekend.
R.I.P. Jon Boorman. You are missed.