Today Trader

Last updated
Today Trader, Inc
Industry Finance
Founded2008
FounderSteve Gomez and Andy Lindloff
Headquarters
Frankfurt am Main
,
Germany
Area served
World wide
Owner
Website todaytrader.com

Today Trader, Inc is a trading and education service that started in 2008. As of 2013, trading with their service is done primarily through their relationship with the Ditto Trade online brokerage service. Since 2018, the venture serves as an educational hub.

Contents

History

Steve Gomez and Andy Lindloff met at a Level 2 trading seminar when they were both working as floor traders in 1998. Today Trader, Inc was started in 2008 when Gomez and Lindloff began sharing their desktops with other traders through GoToMeeting. [1] This service was available as a subscription for active day traders. [2]

The day trading transparency and education provided by Today Trader was unique and they were early adopters in 2010. [2] The company utilized many social media resources to crowdsource ideas and share their ideas including YouTube, Twitter, and StockTwits. [2]

Following the article in The New York Times , the company was approached by Brian Lund to consider becoming a "Lead Trader" with the online brokerage service Ditto Trade. Ditto Trade allows people to follow the Today Trader Lead Trader account and be included in every trade or trade alongside these "master traders" from trade alerts. [3] [4] In 2011, the company was performing approximately thirty transactions per month. [3] These trades are primarily day and swing trading transactions. The service was launched later in 2010 and has been outperforming the S&P 500 since that time. [1]

Gomez was interviewed by CNBC reporter Jane Wells after he sold a portion of his silver holdings in 2011. [5]

On September 20, 2012, the Today Trader team discontinued their live trading service in favor of their relationship with Ditto Trade. [1] They offer trading classes online to learn their specialized trading technique called "swing scalping". Gomez and Lindloff have also published on the importance on money management for traders. [6] [7]

Gomez was listed as one of the "Top 5 Trading Guru’s of 2013" by Trader Robotics. [8]

In March 2018 Michael Hebenstreit, a stock broker from Germany, acquired Today Trader and converted the venture into an educational hub offering content and services for professional traders and students who want to learn trading [9] . [10]

Controversy

The Today Trader live trading service brought attention to the field of day trading. [2] The Motley Fool author Rich Greifner argued that the day trading lifestyle and results described in The New York Times article was "impressive" but questioned the accuracy of the claim as well as offering that these results were "hardly indicative of the typical day trader's experience". [11]

In a follow-up post, StockTwits founder Howard Lindzon described his dislike of the term "day trader" describing it as "tired" similar to the term "journalist". [12] He also noted that traders Gomez "keep moving forward and adapt" to the current market conditions. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cantor Fitzgerald</span> American financial services company

Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. is an American financial services firm that was founded in 1945. It specializes in institutional equity, fixed-income sales and trading, and serving the middle market with investment banking services, prime brokerage, and commercial real estate financing. It is also active in new businesses, including advisory and asset management services, gaming technology, and e-commerce. It has more than 5,000 institutional clients.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Investment banking</span> Type of financial services company

Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that engages in providing advisory-based services on financial transactions for clients, such as institutional investors, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated with corporate finance, such a bank might assist in raising financial capital by underwriting or acting as the client's agent in the issuance of debt or equity securities. An investment bank may also assist companies involved in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and provide ancillary services such as market making, trading of derivatives and equity securities, FICC services or research. Most investment banks maintain prime brokerage and asset management departments in conjunction with their investment research businesses. As an industry, it is broken up into the Bulge Bracket, Middle Market, and boutique market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warren Buffett</span> American investor and philanthropist (born 1930)

Warren Edward Buffett is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist who currently serves as the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. As a result of his investment success, Buffett is one of the best-known investors in the world. As of April 2024, he had a net worth of $139 billion, making him the ninth-richest person in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Day trading</span> Buying and selling financial instruments within the same trading day

Day trading is a form of speculation in securities in which a trader buys and sells a financial instrument within the same trading day, so that all positions are closed before the market closes for the trading day to avoid unmanageable risks and negative price gaps between one day's close and the next day's price at the open. Traders who trade in this capacity are generally classified as speculators. Day trading contrasts with the long-term trades underlying buy-and-hold and value investing strategies. Day trading may require fast trade execution, sometimes as fast as milli-seconds in scalping, therefore direct-access day trading software is often needed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berkshire Hathaway</span> American multinational conglomerate holding company

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Founded in 1839 as a textile manufacturer, it underwent a drastic restructuring into a conglomerate starting in 1965 under the leadership of chairman and CEO Warren Buffett and vice chairman Charlie Munger. Today, the company's earning power is diversified across a broad portfolio of subsidiaries, equity positions and other securities. Insurance is a major area of operations and the float generated serves as an important source of capital. Buffett and Munger are known for their advocacy of value investing principles and under their direction, the company's book value has grown at an average rate of 20%, compared to about 10% from the S&P 500 index with dividends included over the same period, while employing large amounts of capital and minimal debt.

TradeStation Group, Inc. is the parent company of online securities and futures brokerage firms and trading technology companies. It is headquartered in Plantation, Florida, and has offices in New York; Chicago; Richardson, Texas; London; Sydney; and Costa Rica. TradeStation is best known for the technical analysis software and electronic trading platform it provides to active traders and certain institutional trader markets. TradeStation Group was a Nasdaq GS-listed company from 1997 to 2011, until it was acquired by Monex Group, a Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed parent company of one of Japan's leading online securities brokerage firms.

Swing trading is a speculative trading strategy in financial markets where a tradable asset is held for one or more days in an effort to profit from price changes or 'swings'. A swing trading position is typically held longer than a day trading position, but shorter than buy and hold investment strategies that can be held for months or years. Profits can be sought by either buying an asset or short selling. Momentum signals have been shown to be used by financial analysts in their buy and sell recommendations that can be applied in swing trading.

Jefferies Group LLC is an American multinational independent investment bank and financial services company that is headquartered in New York City. The firm provides clients with capital markets and financial advisory services, institutional brokerage, securities research, and asset management. This includes mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, and other financial advisory services. The Capital Markets segment also includes its securities trading and investment banking activities.

<i>Fast Money</i> (talk show) American investing talk show

Fast Money is an American financial stock trading talk show that began airing on the CNBC cable/satellite TV channel on June 21, 2006. Beginning October 10, 2007, it was broadcast every weeknight at 5pm ET, one hour after the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange, until mid-2011 when it was moved to just four nights per week, Monday through Thursday, to make room for special option and currency trading shows on Friday evenings. On March 22, 2013, it returned to the Friday night slot as a half-hour show, followed by the Options Action half-hour show. The Friday edition of Fast Money returned to being a full-hour show on September 22, 2023, after Options Action was quietly cancelled the previous Friday. The show originates from the NASDAQ MarketSite in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timothy Sykes</span> American stock trader

Timothy Sykes is a penny stock trader who earned $1.65 million from a $12,415 Bar mitzvah gift through day trading while in college.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard Lindzon</span> Author and financial analyst

Howard Lindzon is a Canadian Author, financial analyst, technical analyst and super angel investor. Lindzon manages a hedge fund, serves as managing partner of the holding company Social Leverage, limited partner at Knight's Bridge Capital Partners, and is the co-founder of StockTwits. Lindzon was named one of The Best Tweets for Your Money in 2013 by Barron's.

FXCM, also known as Forex Capital Markets, is a retail foreign exchange broker for trading on the foreign exchange market. FXCM allows people to speculate on the foreign exchange market and provides trading in contract for difference (CFDs) on major indices and commodities such as gold and crude oil. It is based in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BGC Group</span> American financial services company

BGC Group, Inc. is an American global financial services company based in New York City and London. Originally formed as part of the larger Cantor Fitzgerald organization, BGC Partners became its own entity in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne-Marie Baiynd</span> Author and Financial Analyst

Anne-Marie Baiynd is an American author, financial analyst, technical analyst. Baiynd published her Market Positioning System (MPS) in 2011 to educate beginning day traders on the tools and techniques that have her listed in Traders at Work: World's Most Successful Traders Make Their Living in the Markets. Baiynd runs a day trading room where subscribers can follow her trades online and provides swing trading set-ups as well as trading education through her web site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">StockTwits</span> Social media site for investors

StockTwits is a social media platform designed for sharing ideas between investors, traders, and entrepreneurs. The company was co-founded by Howard Lindzon and Soren Macbeth in 2009. The company received the first Shorty Award in the 2008 finance category. Time magazine listed the company as one of its 2010 "50 best websites." The company was also named one of the "top 10 most innovative companies in finance" in 2012 by FastCompany. In June 2013, StockTwits had 230,000 active members. By mid-2019, that figure had increased to 2 million, and the company premiered free online trading via an iOS app. In 2022, the Stocktwits platform added crypto and equities trading to the platform.

Robinhood Markets, Inc. is an American financial services company headquartered in Menlo Park, California. It operates an electronic trading platform that facilitates commission-free trades of stocks, exchange-traded funds and cryptocurrencies as well as individual retirement accounts via a mobile app introduced in March 2015. Robinhood is a FINRA-regulated broker-dealer, registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and is a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. The company's revenue comes from three main sources: interest earned on customers' cash balances, selling order information to high-frequency traders and margin lending. As of December 2023, Robinhood had 23.4 million funded accounts and 10.9 million monthly active users. In April 2022, Robinhood rolled out a cryptocurrency wallet to more than 2 million users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interactive Brokers</span> American financial services firm

Interactive Brokers LLC (IB) is an American multinational brokerage firm. It operates the largest electronic trading platform in the United States by number of daily average revenue trades. The company brokers stocks, options, futures, EFPs, futures options, forex, bonds, funds, and some cryptocurrencies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vlad Tenev</span> Bulgaria-born American entrepreneur

Vladimir Tenev is a Bulgarian-American entrepreneur who is the co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, a US-based financial technology services company.

Webull Corporation is a holding company incorporated in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida. Its subsidiaries operate an electronic trading platform, accessible via mobile app and desktop computer, offering commission-free and low-cost trading of stocks, exchange traded funds, options, margins, fixed income, and futures. Its U.S.-based subsidiary, Webull Financial LLC, is a security broker registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a member of FINRA and SIPC, offering trading services to customers in the U.S. It also has licensed subsidiaries offering trading services in Hong Kong and Singapore.

In January 2021, a short squeeze of the stock of the American video game retailer GameStop and other securities took place, causing major financial consequences for certain hedge funds and large losses for short sellers. Approximately 140 percent of GameStop's public float had been sold short, and the rush to buy shares to cover those positions as the price rose caused it to rise even further. The short squeeze was initially and primarily triggered by users of the subreddit r/wallstreetbets, an Internet forum on the social news website Reddit, although a number of hedge funds also participated. At its height, on January 28, the short squeeze caused the retailer's stock price to reach a pre-market value of over US$500 per share, nearly 30 times the $17.25 valuation at the beginning of the month. The price of many other heavily shorted securities and cryptocurrencies also increased.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Today Trader: About" . Retrieved 2013-10-16.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Segal, David (March 27, 2010). "Day Traders 2.0: Wired, Angry and Loving It". The New York Times . Retrieved 2013-10-16.
  3. 1 2 Carey, Theresa W (May 7, 2011). "Day Trade and Keep Your Day Job". Barron's . Retrieved 2013-10-16.
  4. Brodie, Lee (June 5, 2012). "Facebook for Traders". Fast Money (CNBC) . Retrieved 2013-10-16.
  5. Wells, Jane (April 15, 2011). "Steve Gomez on silver". CNBC . Retrieved 2013-10-16.
  6. Lindzon, Howard; Pearlman, Philip; Ivanhoff, Ivaylo (2011). The StockTwits Edge: 40 Actionable Trade Set-Ups from Real Market Pros. Wiley Trading. ISBN   978-1118029053.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. Gomez, Steve; Lindloff, Andy (July 20, 2011). "Steve Gomez and Andy Lindloff on Money Management" . Retrieved 2013-10-16.
  8. John (2013). "Top 5 Trading Guru's of 2013" . Retrieved 2013-10-16.
  9. John, Fakhri. "quantumai" . Retrieved 27 April 2021.
  10. "About TodayTrader.com | Website for day traders, stock traders and investors". TodayTrader. Retrieved 2018-08-26.
  11. Greifner, Rich (May 11, 2010). "Day Traders: Dumber Than Ever". The Motley Fool . Retrieved 2013-10-16.
  12. 1 2 Lindzon, Howard (March 27, 2010). "Day Traders…Wired and 'Tired'" . Retrieved 2013-10-16.