I’m not from Wall Street. I spent more than 20 years in and around trading desks, brokerage platforms and spreadsheets I built myself because the tools available were not good enough for me, primarily because I was always asking myself the question before anyone else ever did – why did I have to be losing money on a paper strong stock and why did I get the most money on a stock everyone hated.
This became a habit. The habit became a discipline that I still follow on every piece I publish here: if I haven’t looked at the chart and filing, it doesn’t get published. Not one or the other. I’ve seen enough traders lose money on an effort to catch a technical breakout on a company whose balance sheet was incapable of handling one bad quarter, and I’ve seen as many investors wither and die on a great earnings report that had no price action to support the story the numbers were telling. A wonderful chart and a poor balance sheet is a snare and a delusion. A good quarter that will not contain a level is a trap in disguise. I learned this the hard way, having made plenty of backtesting errors, made some real position sizing mistakes, and overexposed to a lot of individual stocks early in my trading career.
Since then, I have made it a point to use the platforms and tools that I write about – not just browse through the marketing pages. I’ve used a variety of live accounts, with Interactive Brokers, Seeking Alpha, Finviz, Stock Rover, TradingView, and a rotating list of brokers from the US, Canadian, Malaysian, and Southeast Asian markets, since a screener (or broker for that matter) looks very different on a features page than it does at 11pm when you’re trying to understand why an order didn’t fill the way you had hoped. The majority of what I post here was originally written as a reminder to myself when I made a mistake.
I write for those who want to know why a move, and not simply what to buy at the bottom of another article. I’m writing to the individual investor who wants the real deal – the real mechanics, the real numbers, and the real deal downside costs when it’s a losing strategy, as well as the real deal upside gains when it’s a winning strategy. I still make mistakes with trades. But I still do get the urge to look at a screener with too many filters up and ask myself why I am creating a fortress around a stock that doesn’t exist. I just try to tell you the truth as I’m leaving, I think that’s more helpful to you than if I say I made all my calls clean.
All of what I publish is my research and my own positions as I reveal them, and my own mistakes where appropriate to the lesson. None of this is a replacement for your own homework or a discussion with a licensed financial adviser regarding your situation; and I wouldn’t believe anyone talking about markets who said otherwise.
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