Part One: Why Futures Traders Need Tweetdeck For Trading
I write about trading strategies to get feedback from our stable of consistent proprietary traders. I also share ways to use real-time trading strategies to spread ideas, get other ponts of view, to influence minds, and build a successful trading business.
My first trading job was on a stock and futures trading desk in the mid-1990s. I was mesmerized by the real-time "scrolling" news feeds from Dow Jones and Reuters and hearing the background audio of CNBC on the trading floor.
My first huge news trade was breaking live coverage on CNBC of New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, charging insurance companies with fraud. Traders had a couple of minutes to react before major news media picked up the story. We were fast enough to short stock and buy put options on insurance industry stocks. The insurance companies, as an industry group, dropped around -15% that day — one of my better trading days in my career.
"Wow," I thought, if we can get a jump on the news being reported from secondary sources before major news sources cover the story, then we have a trading edge.”
In fact, over my trading career, we had many profitable news trades with a trading edge. The key is using the proper news trading tools and covering the right news sources.
Trader Tools To Be First To Know About Breaking Market News
Tweetdeck is one of the fastest and most advanced news streamers designed for active traders. Traders use news services to get a jump on other traders as the story circulates through the different types of media. The best part is Tweetdeck is a free service.
Other tools to monitor social media breaking news are Dataminr, Trade The News, LiveSquawk, Bloomberg, and Social Market Analytics. These news source tools charge a monthly subscription fee but are on most professional trader's desks.
What Makes Tweetdeck A Great News Tool For Active Traders
Tweetdeck is powerful as a Twitter tool and news trading tool. Tweetdeck rose to popularity in the futures and commodity trading community, thanks, in part, to columns that allow users to customize content by hashtag, keywords, lists, users, and message types.
How Does Twitter News Move Futures Markets
These days, all it takes is a few words on Twitter to send futures tanking or climbing. Below is a trading example of a Twitter tweet and how it impacted the futures market.
The Tweet That Moved The e-mini S&P 500 Futures Market:
Immediate result: e-mini S&P futures contracts dropped -10 point (40 tics) after President Trump tweeted about China trade war.
Stay tuned for future news trading stratgey ideas. We will discuss trading the news using Tweetdeck and custom content filters that top futures and commodity traders use to monitor breaking financial news.
Stay tuned for Part 2 - Top Futures Traders Use Tweetdeck Content Filters For Trade Relevance
Stay tuned for Part 3 - 17 Best Trading Market Moving Influencers To Follow On Twitter
Also, you can borrow Futures Magazine Twitter Lists here.