StockTwits is a large online community for traders and investors. It can be used by anyone who wants to see what is currently happening in the various financial markets, including stocks, forex, cryptos and futures. Through StockTwits, you can see what real traders and investors are talking about as it happens, completely free of charge. In this StockTwits Review, we will cover some of the key features to help you decide if it is something you would want to use as part of your daily trading activity.
Company Overview
Founded in 2008, StockTwits was originally developed as an app built on Twitter. It was the first Twitter app to organize conversations around tickers using the cashtag (e.g. $AAPL). They have since grown into a standalone social network and the defining voice of “social finance.”
StockTwits continue to reimagine financial media, tools and services for the next generation of investors and traders. Their mission is “To power the global conversation for investors & traders of all levels in order to connect, learn, profit and have fun.”
What is StockTwits?
StockTwits is one of the best ways to find out what is happening right now around the markets, companies and assets you care about. I guess if you were explaining StockTwits in complete laymen’s terms, you would say it is a social media platform for the financial markets.
For those of you who may not be aware, “twit” is an English term traditionally used to describe a silly or foolish person. Quite an interesting choice of name but I like the sense of fun they are trying to bring to what can sometimes be a dull industry.
What the StockTwits platform does so well, is to collate an abundance of information related to the financial markets, all in one place. This allows traders and investors from all over the world to conveniently stay up-to-date on the latest buzz from active traders and gauge social sentiment.
The information gathered from the StockTwits platform can then be used to help identify possible trading opportunities. Perhaps there was a big market move coming up that you were not aware of or a company you have already invested in will be releasing some news that could have a positive or negative impact on a position that you already hold.
Whatever your trading instrument of choice or individual goals, StockTwits can certainly be a very useful trading tool to add to your Arsenal. It is versatile, flexible and fully customisable to show only the news that matters most to you.
StockTwits prides itself as a venue for market participants to congregate for the purposes of mutual discovery, sharing, networking, and learning. They strive to be the place for investors and traders to quickly get up to speed on market-moving information and insight which is driving real-time changes in investor mood and sentiment.
StockTwits Advantages
No doubt, when used correctly, StockTwits has a number of distinct advantages that help set it apart from other online trading communities.
Here we will take a look at some of the key advantages of utilising the StockTwits platform.
Exclusive Insights
StockTwits gathers information from so many different sources and complies them into one stream. You can get exclusive insights that you may not have been able to get elsewhere. It helps you keep up to date with the market news in real-time.
Various Sources
Generally speaking, the more something is being talked about in the financial markets, the more significant the impact can be. StockTwits combines thousands of sources into one place. This way you can see at a glance, some of the most talked about topics currently happening in the various markets.
Market Sentiment
Most new traders I am aware of, will start with some form of technical analysis using a lagging indicator. Let’s say the moving average for arguments sake. Not that it’s a bad indicator by any means, it is actually a great indicator when used correctly!
They will then go on to discover fundamental analysis and realise that news events can have a significant impact on market movements. Great! They now have a chart loaded with various trading indicators and are carefully following the market news with an economic calendar, happy days.
After a dodgy run of results, they go back to the drawing board and scouring the depths of forex forums before they run into another trading unicorn, enter the price action analysis. If they can see through the mumble jumble of indicators on the chart and hear past the constant market news alerts, they may just be able to make out that candlestick pattern that could be a buy, could be a sell, could be a coincidence.
Still, something is missing….
Enter, the market sentiment! This for me, is something that way too many traders over look. After all, it is the sentiment that moves the market most of the time, right?! If the majority of traders and investors are buying an asset, we may expect the price to increase. This is called a strong buy sentiment. If the majority were selling on asset, we could say that the market sentiment is selling and thus, the price may be dropping accordingly.
I personally compare trading without knowing what the market sentiment is, to trading with a blind fold on. So many people complain about brokers hunting stops. Well, if they know what you are doing, buying or selling, does that not give them an advantage. Conspiracy theory and sarcasm aside, I do truly believe there is significant benefits to knowing the market sentiment.
That being said, StockTwits provides a quick and easy way to gauge the current market sentiment to help anticipate possible market movements, up, down or sideways if they are unsure.
Free!
StockTwits is free to use! There are companies who charge good money to have such an abundance of information compiled into one place. Nobody really wants 100+ browser tabs open to try and follow the market news in today’s day and age.
Versatile
StockTwits is extremely versatile in the sense that it can be used to follow any market that you have an interest in. That could be the stock market, forex market, commodities, indices, cryptocurrencies, futures, gold, silver, oil, gas, you name it!
Verify Sources
If a self-proclaimed guru makes a statement on another platform, there may be uncertainty to some people over whether it should be taken as gospel or with a huge grain of salt. The beauty of StockTwits is that sources can be credited by others for giving out useful information and generally speaking, the more something is being talked about, the more verification we may have on it being true.
Learn
Who doesn’t want to learn something new every day? There are so many different traders and investors on StockTwits with new things happening in the markets on a daily basis. It can be a very informative trading community to discover things that you may otherwise have not known about. That doesn’t mean that you have to trade everything under the sun, but can make for good conversational pieces at the dinner table.
Feedback
If you are unsure about a financial market or particular asset, StockTwits can be a great place to get indirect or even direct feedback from a very helpful and friendly trading community. One could say that the financial markets have traditionally been “stand offish” to new comers. However, StockTwits welcomes everyone to share and learn new ideas.
Support
The StockTwits development team are on hand and happy to help users with any questions they may have related to their services. Perhaps you have a cool new feature you would like implemented or you are not sure how to get the best out of the StockTwits platform. If you reach out to them, they should get back to you promptly.
StockTwits Disadvantages
As with any form of social media, despite the many advantages, there are also some disadvantages to be made aware of. Whilst they do not mean the StockTwits platform is bad by any means, they are just worth being aware of so that you can hopefully get the best out of what StockTwits has to offer.
Here we will take a look at some of the possible disadvantages of the StockTwits platform.
Market Noise
One of the advantages of StockTwits could actually be a disadvantage to some. There is so much information in one place, it may be hard for those who like things a little simpler to be able to distinguish between what matters and what doesn’t.
However, this market noise can be filtered out by customising the StockTwits platform according to the information which matters the most to you.
Quality Control
It can be hard to know what information is reliable on StockTwits and what information is be neither here nor there. Generally speaking, anyone can share information on the StockTwits platform without needing to be first verified, For that reason, there may some issues with the quality of the market insights.
However, you can choose to follow the news only from the most expectable sources if you wish.
Information Overload
Too much of a good thing can be bad, right? Depends who you ask, I guess. In this instance, if you are easily overwhelmed and guilty of overthinking, you may find that there is just too much information collated on the StockTwits platform for you to sift through. This could potentially lead to analysis paralysis and ending up even more confused than when you started out.
That being said, this is not really a criticism of StockTwits itself. It is more down to how you choose to utilise the vast amount of information that it provides so well.
Abuse
As StockTwits is free for anyone to use, just like all social media, it will attract trolls or haters. Someone could make 100 good calls in a row and they would probably be called a scammer by someone. These types of people are an unfortunate part of the world we live in today and I wish social media in general would do more to shut them out.
Thankfully, there is a function on the StockTwits platform where you can report abuse. From my experience, calling trolls out will only enable their behaviour. They feed on getting a reaction. Poor souls.
Conflicting Views
Buy, buy, buy, sell, sell, sell! Sit on your hands, do nothing, walk away, spin around in a circle, balance a ball on your head whilst rubbing your tummy in an anti-clockwise motion. I am sure we have all taken in so much information before that we ended up with contradictions and more confused then when we first started looking for an answer. Again, StockTwits is so abundant with information, there is likely always going to be conflicting views.
To help try and negate this fact, I would personally side with the majority. If I see a greater amount of people talking positive about the price of a particular asset, it may be a signal to me it could go up. If I see the asset getting trashed across the board, I may be expecting it to go down. If nobody seems to care, then I may just feel sorry for it.
Spam
Oldest gag in the book, but we are not talking about a meaty sandwich. Unless of course that is your thing, we don’t judge around here. Look at any social media network and you will probably see some form of spam within minutes.
The StockTwits platform has features to combat this and get it removed as soon as possible. Just keep your eagle eye peeled and try to avoid spammy content as much as possible.
Cheerleading
OMG this is totally the best thing since sliced bread! Have you heard about this new crypto that nobody is talking about? Its going to be huge! That’s what she said. It may be called StockTwits, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be one.
In all seriousness, people who shill or “big-up” unproven assets, can actually cause some people significant financial loss. It is not a joke and should be avoided at all costs. Do your own due diligence and be aware of all the risks involves with trading and investing online. Seek professional advice if necessary.
StockTwits Help
On the StockTwits website, you can find a good range of useful resources to help you understand more about the StockTwits platform and what it has to offer. There is a knowledge base where you can browse by category and learn more about how to use StockTwits. The frequently asked questions section can give you a quick answer to some of the most commonly asked questions. You can also contact the StockTwits support team using the contact form.
StockTwits Summary
StockTwits is the leading social network for investors and traders. Whatever your trading experience level or goals, it is certainly a trading tool worth at least trying out. It would be quite hard to argue against it having no benefit. If someone is trading the financial markets, why wouldn’t they want a ton of information from others doing the exact same thing.
Of course, as with the majority of trading tools, you can get out of it what you want to. For example, some people may use it simply as a convenient way to get all information in one place. Others may use it specifically to generate trading signals.
That is the beauty of StockTwits, it is extremely versatile to suit the needs of different traders and investors around the globe. What’s more, it is free to use! If you want to find out more and download the StockTwits app, please feel free to visit the StockTwits website by clicking the link below.
StockTwits
Free
Pros
- Online community
- Social trading platform
- Various financial markets
- StockTwits App
- Free to use
- Tons of information
- Sentiment analysis
- Share ideas & opinions
- Learn about the markets
- Real time market news
Cons
- Requires additional confirmation
- Ideas are open to interpretation
- Limited information about OTC stocks
- Some information is of questionable quality
Self-confessed Forex Geek spending my days researching and testing everything forex related. I have many years of experience in the forex industry having reviewed thousands of forex robots, brokers, strategies, courses and more. I share my knowledge with you for free to help you learn more about the crazy world of forex trading! Read more about me.
