Trader’s Narrative

Since I last mentioned WallStreak, Ugly has made incremental improvements to the site. And I hear more are coming in the near future. Eventhough I don’t always post, I’ve been checking out Wallstreak.com during the trading day.

If you’re not familiar with it, WallStreak is an online hangout (chatroom) for traders during the day. Most of the time individual traders point out interesting setups, potential opportunities and during luls, they just chit-chat about the market and everything else under the sun.

It is completely free and no one is there to sell signals or calls. It is a community of traders helping traders. Similar to the trading blog community. But obviously, during the trading day, it isn’t practical to blog about an opportunity or chart setup since by the time you do, it’s over!

The value added of WallStreak is near instantaneous communication between traders. For example, during the recent NASDAQ quote problems, the first source to confirm it was Wallstreak. Then came TV news (CNBC), bloggers and other online sources.

Right now there are about 10 regulars but it is growing every week. Registering will give you a username and an account with which you can customize WallStreak settings. For example, you can set up a watchlist and share it with others. But if you prefer to dip your toes in the water first, you can simply post anonymously.

Even a luddite like me is beginning to recognize that WallStreak has significant potential as a tool. In the short term, I can see it growing to a few dozen regular participants with around 10 times that many people just lurking and reading. My very premature concern is that as it grows there may be too much chatter and the “signal” may be lost in the “noise”. But Ugly’s got some tricks up his sleeve.

For example, you can use a blacklist to exclude eveybody except a few individuals - in essence, setting up your own “room” within WallStreak or you can whitelist everyone and then filter their contributions out if you deem them to not be a noteworthy.

And while it is an informal place, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t intelligent calls. I’m not saying that you should jump on evey ticker mentioned on WallStreak. You have to do your own thinking and have an edge. On top of that, it is helpful to have more than one set of eyes and minds watching the market and sharing insights. Anyway, here are the two examples.

The first one was on May 7th, 2007 when Hansen Natural Corp. (HANS) had a scheduled conference call. On WallStreak, Richard pointed out that HANS was acting “jittery”.

Click to Enlarge Graph:

The other example is from yesterday when an anonymous user pointed out Merck (MRK). Their comments are appended to the graph below.

Click to Enlarge Graph:

Hmmm… Merck. Rings a bell.

Here are three places where you can chat with traders live during the day:

WallStreak
This is the newest one! If you’re familiar with twitter/jaiku you’ll be off and running with WallStreak in no time. I’m really excited about WallStreak - not only because Ugly is my friend and I want to see him succeed - but also because it uses new technology (ajax as opposed to java), is new and hungry, is open to suggestions, has introduced many new & exclusive features. Give it a try and contact Ugly with your feedback and suggestions. Developed correctly, this has amazing potential as a trading tool.

DehTrader
Glenn over at dehtrader.com has his own chat where a good number of traders hang out every day. They are a very friendly and helpful group. My only gripe is with the technical side of things: it is java driven and has a tiny screen size which makes you have to scroll to see what was said a few minutes ago. You can register or not, as you prefer.

EliteTrader
For some reason most people who know elitetrader, don’t know it has its own chat room. The last time I was there it was a mix of calls, commentary and some really childish banter - but that’s to be expected since it is a large group. Elitetrader’s chat doesn’t allow anonymous participation so if you need to register. On the plus side, they provide a daily log so you can go back and review it like a transcript.

There are also many IRC channels dedicated to trading. Some are public but most of the good ones are private, invite only clubs. If you know of any good IRC channels, drop me a comment.

My ideal would still be an audio setup with a relatively small group of traders but I’m beginning to be won over to the text based chats. I think there is great potential - we aren’t there yet but with some new adjustments and tweaks it can be a very good medium.