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

CHAPTER 11

Intraday Earnings Momentum Gap Trade

John Lee, @weeklyTA

John is too young to be as passionate and smart about stocks and markets as he is. You can get this way only from lots and lots of hard work. His students and the broader StockTwits community are unanimous in their praise of his expertise, attention to detail, and willingness to share his knowledge. John's focus on managing money, not just entries into stocks, will make him a great mentor for any beginner and really for any trader who wants to improve and add weapons to the trading arsenal.

Success always comes when preparation meets opportunity.

—Henry Hartman

FINDING THE RIGHT APPROACH

I started investing at the age of 13. Almost every night, my dad brought home annual reports and Wall Street Journals and I gradually became interested in the stock market. At that time, I adopted a conventional fundamental buy-and-hold strategy in Dow stocks and avoided the NASDAQ mania and crash. During my first year at Valley Forge Military College in 2002, I started to learn more about the dynamics of the market and gradually began educating myself.

But it wasn't until I was 17 that I adopted a swing trading strategy based on technical analysis that was an early version to my current approach. I switched my market philosophy due to time constraints. Also, I was dissatisfied with the performance of the buy-and-hold Dow stocks strategy. I could no longer withstand large drawdowns simply because I was supposed to “hold” and ...