They're Starting to Get it Now…

This weekend’s issue of Barron’s has a feature story about how professional traders, amateur investors, analysts, journalists and bloggers are using Twitter and StockTwits to be better at what they do and have fun in the process.

Written by Nancy Miller, I would say that it’s the first mainstream media article to truly explain the glorious collision of social media and finance correctly.  There is none of the paranoia present as when most television and radio personalities dismissively mention the tweeting that is so disruptive to their fading authority as arbiters of what’s newsworthy.  Instead, we hear about plenty of finance Twitterers whose names you already know (Roubini! Kass! Gabelli!) and then several rockstars whose names you’ll know soon.

Your favorite financial blogger has both a quote in there and is named to the list of top 20 tweeters.  For those of you who’ve doggedly followed my torturous commentary all this time, you are vindicated in a way 🙂

Here’s me explaining the true value of StockTwits and Twitter for market participants:

But earnings leaks are the exception, not the rule. The real value of these networks comes from the “crowd-sourced intel being discovered and then echoed across the Web as journalists, traders, investors and bloggers become a hive,” says Joshua Brown (@ReformedBroker), a blogger, StockTwits investor and vice president at Fusion Analytics.

That’s a pretty money quote if I do say so myself, I’m available for book blurbings and soundbites, just call my toll free hotline.

As far as that list of Twenty Tweeps you should Keep, here’s me and Paul and Gregor…

Downtown Josh Brown
@ReformedBroker
Followers: 7,367
A writer of provocative, pot-stirring tweets, he’s an advisor at Fusion Analytics, also home to noted investment manager Barry Ritholtz (@ritholtz).

Paul Kedrosky
@pkedrosky
Followers: 129,681
Once a tech analyst at a brokerage house, he invests in stocks and private equity, edits the blog Infectious Greed and tweets ’round the clock with humor and style.

Gregor MacDonald
@GregorMacdonald
Followers: 4,423
An independent analyst, MacDonald serves up trenchant observations about energy and the economy. He has been using California as a case study in lackluster recoveries.

Be sure to head over for the rest of the story, it is well-done and finally offers those on the outside a real perspective on what they may be missing each day.

Sources:

All Atwitter with Investment Tips (Barron’s)

Twenty Tweeps for Keeps (Barron’s)