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

CHAPTER 39

Always Happy, Never Satisfied

Joshua Brown, @reformedbroker

The investment management business is ruthless and almost always about returns, but Josh shows that you can be a successful student of the markets and still care about your clients. Doing the right thing matters and Josh always does the right thing. He brings insights, links, missives, and laughs to our streams, and the StockTwits community loves and respects him for that. He's also a loyal friend and fantastic writer who calls me the “Blog Father,” so I had to include him in this book.

MAKE ALL YOUR MISTAKES EARLY IN YOUR CAREER

I'm a fee-based financial adviser in New York City. I work with high-net-worth individuals, corporations, institutions, and charitable foundations. My job is to truly understand clients' objectives and risk tolerance, which enables me to allocate their investable assets with the most efficient risk/reward balance possible. Contrary to what some professors tell their students, trading and investing are as much art as they are science, and experience counts a great deal.

I began my career as a stockbroker at the end of the 1990s when everything was going up, everyone was trading, and brokers were rock stars. As a rookie, I witnessed the most parabolic stock boom in history as the tech-heavy NASDAQ took out 5,000 and captivated the world. I then had a front-row seat for the denouement as all the gains were given back, margin wiped out the reckless, and the dreams of the buy-and-holders ...