Twitter is on everyone’s mind these days. In light of Elon Musk’s takeover, there are a lot of people with mixed thoughts/feelings about the platform. But I for one am incredibly grateful for what Twitter has brought into my world.
During the depths of the financial crisis, I was trading (poorly) from home. I had left my office at the Chicago Board of Trade a couple years prior and I was having a hard time adjusting to being away from “my people.”
I missed the camaraderie of being around other traders. I missed the serendipitous strategy brainstorms. I was lacking the sounding boards to vent after a bad trading day, or to celebrate after a good one. And there was nobody else on Earth who understood the inside jokes and mannerisms that were second nature to those of us who attempt to pull money from the markets on a daily basis.
We are a different breed of human animal.
In March 2009 as the stock market was nearing the bottom of the Great Financial Crisis, I read an article in Barron’s that mentioned this “new online community called Twitter” and it highlighted people in finance who were using the platform to share trading ideas and network.
I thought it sounded like an interesting idea and I signed up for an account.
Of course, my early attempts at using the platform were amateurish at best. [Read more…]