The StockTwits® Edge: 40 Actionable Trade Set-Ups from Real Market Pros

CHAPTER 15

Flags and Wedges

Joe Donohue, @upsidetrader

If I were to pick one guy to trade me off a desert island, Joe would be the one. If I had to pick an old fart to be stuck with on a desert island, Joe would be that man, too. Joe eats, sleeps, and drinks the market and I always trust his instincts. You can't be the best without a work ethic like Joe's. We are glad to have him as an investor, contributor, and partner at StockTwits.

When I am long of stocks it is because my reading of conditions has made me bullish. But you find many people, reputed to be intelligent, who are bullish because they have stocks. I do not allow my possessions—or my prepossessions either—to do any thinking for me. That is why I repeat that I never argue with the tape.

—Jesse Livermore

SERVING CHIVAS TO THE WALL STREET SHARKS

I was about 22 years old and I was just starting my senior year in college when a good pal and classmate walked over to me in a beautiful suit, dressed like Gordon Gekko. I asked him where he worked and he told me he was an apprentice at Bear Stearns. He said he was a “cold caller.” I was clueless. Evidently it was the process of talking to very high-net-worth folks and gathering information on their investment approaches so the partner could sell them stocks. He got me an interview, and I too began working for a partner who was formerly from Lehman Brothers. Within the first week I spoke to T. Boone Pickens, Lee Iacocca, Frank Perdue, and many other notable CEOs. I was green ...