The Importance of Routines...and Stocktwits

The market is RARELY easy.

Through 2008 and the beginning of 2009, global averages melted down.

The last 5 months they have melted up.

Because I am mostly a momentum investor in the stock market, the last few weeks have been extremely agonizing. The breakout signals have been coming and I have been mostly passing. Too much Stocktwits and managing private investments and I have learned over the years to invest small or not at all when you can’t put in the hours. Because I don’t really have the time, in 2007 I moved my momentum stock investing money into Blackstar Funds. Eric sends me their list of new buys every week and I appreciate the importance of systems and money management.

Forget Goldman Sachs for a moment, there are thousands of good traders on Stocktwits that I could never trade against successfully. If we do nothing else at Stocktwits and add no more people, we will have one of the best resources for investors/traders that I have seen and I have been doing this forever.

There are just so few people that can trade for a living. I do believe it can be learned, but great traders are most likely born. That’s a whole argument on it’s own. What all great traders do practice though…is routine.

The best at EVERYTHING have their routines.

Even though I mostly just watch, the markets will always be in my blood. Waking at 5 am PST without an alarm clock is just wired into my system. I read, write, check quotes, see what stocks I think I should/could trade and make my lists, but when the opening bell rings I must move on to running other businesses. You can’t compete unless you have a trading routine for AFTER the opening bell.

I will be back one day and I am glad that Stocktwits will be there for me.