I get asked all the time why I’m willing to share so much about my strategies, my process, and all my portfolio decisions.
And the answer is simple: Why wouldn’t I?
I came up in this business a little differently than a lot of people. I was on Twitter in 2007 and 2008 during the Great Financial Crisis, and then had a front-row seat to the social media revolution that came right after it.
Back then, I started writing daily emails to friends and family just to help them understand what I was seeing every day at work.
Markets were moving fast. People were scared. And most regular investors had no idea what was really happening underneath the surface, even though I knew it would eventually affect all of us.
By the time the real collapse came in 2008, I had already completed all three levels of the CMT program and had about five years of experience under my belt.
Looking back now, it’s funny how much confidence I had at the time. But I had opinions. I had data. And I felt a responsibility to share what I was seeing.
Those emails eventually turned into conversations with colleagues and other market people. Then in 2010, I launched Allstarcharts.com.
That blog changed my life.
All of a sudden, I was meeting traders and investors I’d looked up to for years. I was getting invited onto all the business TV networks in New York City, speaking at conferences around the world, and sitting at dinners and events I never would’ve imagined being a part of.
And I was still in my 20s.
Now here I am at 44 years old, decades into this career, building TrendLabs and sharing more than I ever have before.
Why?
Because the greatest benefit has never been the TV appearances or the fancy dinners. It’s the community. The people around me. The conversations. The feedback. The accountability.
That’s the real edge.
Full transparency helps keep me honest.
Without it, I think it becomes too easy to fool yourself. To rewrite history. To only show the winners and hide from the losers.
I never wanted to do that.
So I share everything. The process. The trades. The good calls and the bad ones.
Because in the end, I truly believe that’s how I win the most.
We’re Social Beings
I’ve met so many incredible people through Twitter, or X, or FinTwit, or whatever we’re calling it this week.
Mentors. Friends. Colleagues. People I genuinely respect.
And sure, like anywhere else on the internet, there’s noise. But the beautiful thing about social media is that you get to curate your own experience.
If someone brings negativity, bad faith arguments, or just adds nothing of value to your life, one click and they’re gone forever.
That’s a feature, not a bug.
Because the positives have outweighed the negatives by a mile for me.
We’re social beings. We’re not meant to sit alone in a dark room staring at charts all day with no interaction, no conversation, no exchange of ideas.
There’s something healthy about communicating with other people trying to solve the same problems and accomplish similar goals.
You won’t find me hanging around Political Twitter unless it directly affects markets. You probably won’t see me deep in sports or wine Twitter either, although I’ll occasionally make an appearance.
You’ll find me where I’ve been almost every day for the past 20 years: Finance Twitter (FinTwit).
It’s the only social media platform I still use. I deleted the rest a long time ago. Too much noise. Too many empty rooms pretending to be important conversations.
FinTwit is where the real-time exchange of ideas actually happens. Traders, investors, portfolio managers, analysts, economists, journalists, and market nerds from all over the world are all there together, sharing information and challenging each other in real time.
That’s where the value is.
And after spending two decades in the middle of those conversations every single day, I feel pretty comfortable making that distinction.
You’ll find my work right here every day on Everybody’s Wrong. And you’ll find every trade from both portfolios, The Divergence and The Primary Trend.
That’s my contribution to a community that’s given me so much over the years.
The funny thing is, the more I share, the more I feel like I’m the one benefiting the most.
Because I’d much rather navigate these markets alongside smart people I trust than sit alone pretending I have all the answers.
We’re social beings.
I’m just being social.
The Feedback Is the Edge
One of the biggest reasons I put my work out there every day is because I want the feedback.
I don’t know everything. Nobody does.
But I have ideas. And those ideas get better when thousands of smart eyes are looking at the same markets from different angles.
That’s the advantage of being part of a real community.
Every single trade I make gets published in real time – the winners, the losers, all of them.
This isn’t Hindsight Capital where we cherry-pick the good calls, delete the bad ones, stay bullish during bear markets, or stay bearish during bull markets just so we can say, “See, I told you.”
You won’t hear me doing victory laps. I’d rather just show the work – every trade, every adjustment, every risk-management decision, in real time.
Because full transparency helps keep me honest.
There’s nowhere to hide. No stories to make up after the fact. The data is the data.
And honestly, that accountability makes me better.
So thank you. Seriously.
Thank you for reading the work, challenging the ideas, sharing your perspectives, and showing up every day trying to get better at something we all know is incredibly hard.
We’re all trying to make money in the market, together.
And I can promise you this: I’ll keep showing the work.
Every single day.
Stay sharp,
JC Parets, CMT
Founder, TrendLabs