The term “OG” originally stood for “original gangster.”
It’s slang for early arrivals to the scene who’ve earned their stripes.
It’s someone who’s been around for a while, sees what’s happening, and knows what they’re looking at.
Seems weird for me to think of myself as an “OG.” I still feel so young and relatively new around here.
“OG” is not really a term you self-apply anyway. It’s more a distinction bestowed by others.
Whether I’m “OG” or not, I was certainly trained by the original, respected, and old-school technical analysts.
I’ve studied and learned from all the OGs.
And I think I know how to spot them…
Meet Ryan Detrick
Some of you might laugh at this one, because my friend Ryan Detrick needs no introduction.
You want to talk about an “OG”? Ryan is legit.
Ryan is the Chief Market Strategist at Carson Group, a firm that manages more than $40 billion in assets.
Here he is on price action in May:
They told you Trump would wreck it all. They told you Japanese yields would end it all. They told you a credit event was here. They told you something called Quad Four was real.
None was true. This was the best May for stocks in 35 yrs. Congrats to those who ignored the noise.
I’ll be sharing more from OGs like Ryan whose work I trust and who’ve inspired me over many years.
The TrendLabs Crew
It’s true that, when it comes to writing, sharing ideas, and networking, I was there in the early days of the blogosphere and then Twitter.
So I was present at the creation of this entire social media landscape.
It was all born from the depths of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).
The rest of the world finally realized they can’t trust the traditional financial media outlets that missed the whole thing.
They couldn’t trust Wall Street because Wall Street caused the GFC.
That’s when blogs really got going, around 2009-10. A few blogs existed before then, of course, but that’s when things took off, after the GFC.
There were unwritten rules back then. There was a community aspect of sharing and spreading love.
It wasn’t this constant battle for attention and ego-boosting like you see today.
The way I came up in this world, when you saw good content and noticed someone working hard you told everyone about it, on your blog or on your Twitter feed, usually both.
Other financial networks have come and gone over the years. But Twitter, now X, has always been, and still is, the go-to social media network for finance.
“FinTwit” is still where everyone hangs out. If anyone tells you otherwise, they’re lying to you.
I’m still out here sharing other people’s work and spreading the word – in the spirit of the way things were at the beginning, now more than 15 years ago.
I don’t know any other way. This is how I was brought up – “do unto others,” if you will.
Also, I have a lot of smart friends.
It’d be selfish and stupid not to share with you their great perspectives on financial markets.
Why wouldn’t I share valuable insights when I see them?
I don’t even really try to do it anymore.
I truly just can’t help myself.
When I see something good, I’m going to tell you about it.
That’s basically how we assembled the TrendLabs crew.
Jason Perz, our futures expert, has been a Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) sharing ideas and intermarket analysis on his socials and blogs for many years.
He was the perfect addition to our team.
Grant Hawkridge is our quant chief. He’s down in Australia.
Grant is constantly running models and numbers for us while the rest of us are sleeping. I get to wake up every morning to Grant’s amazing work.
He’s our overnight guy. And he happily does the graveyard shift since he resides on the other side of the world.
And then there’s Sam Gatlin. Look out for this guy!
A few years ago Sam became the youngest Chartered Market Technician (CMT) in American history.
Few people I know work as hard as he does. And he just gets it.
When it comes to this stuff you either get it or you don’t.
All these guys found me on Twitter and through my blog.
But if it wasn’t for them sharing ideas as well and adding to the conversation among the community, I would never have found them.
So what’s the lesson here?
I don’t use LinkedIn to hire people and assemble a team.
Remember Monster.com? Or The New York Times jobs section?
None of that matters anymore.
These days, we just have to look around.
And, if you’re sharing and contributing and adding value, you’ll find others doing the same whose perspectives compliment yours.
That’s how we have such a killer team.
Stay sharp,
JC Parets, CMT
Founder, TrendLabs