Twitter Trader - Dr. Brett's New Real-Time Blog Feature

If you look carefully at the sidebar for this blog, you'll notice a new feature called "Twitter Trader". I've installed the Twitter widget into the blog, which enables me to enter brief (about 2 sentences) text messages onto the blog from my cell phone, IM, or desktop (with the Twitteroo application).

If you're not familiar with Twitter, it's used as a messaging/micro-blogging application that helps people stay in touch with their social networks. You can add friends to your networks and subscribe to the networks of others, so that everyone can see what people are up to. By adding the widget to, say, your personal website, people can stay up to date with you whenever they view your site. Moreover, you can stay in touch with others by having their updates forwarded to your phone or desktop.

For TraderFeed, the application of Twitter is somewhat different. By adding the Twitter Trader section to the blog, I've essentially created a microblog within a blog. This will enable me to enter brief messages about the market as the market is trading. For instance, I might see a move in currencies that is likely to impact stocks and send that message to the Twitter Trader section of the blog.

The blog will display the five most recent Twitter entries. Refreshing the blog page will ensure that the latest entries are displayed. To see all Twitter entries, you can go to my personal page on Twitter. Clicking the "follow me on Twitter" link at the bottom of Twitter Trader will get you to my Twitter page. Refreshing that page will also ensure that the latest entries are displayed.

I'll be feeling my way around the Twitter Trader feature. My aim is not to post continuously through the day, but rather to focus on important market observations. Please note that I do not trade actively all day--most my trading occurs in the morning--and I do not trade every day (because of being on the road and working with traders). I don't anticipate making Twitter entries when I'm away from the markets.

At this juncture, I won't be adding friends to Twitter for pure social networking. If, however, you're an experienced blogger/trader and add Twitter to your site for market commentary, I would gladly add you as a friend so that we could create a composite commentary for traders. (Traders going to any of our Twitter pages could follow our entries and those of our selected friends.) This would create a valuable Web 2.0 resource for traders--a real time stream of market observations from multiple perspectives. It could easily evolve into a high-level conversation about markets as they trade. Cool.

If you have suggestions or feedback re: Twitter Trader, drop me a line at the email address in the "About Me" section of the blog. I appreciate your interest and hope this real time feature of the blog helps to apply some of the ideas from the posts.

Brett