Who to follow in the local ‘fintwit’ universe

I joined Twitter over 13 years ago – and to paraphrase Winston Churchill, I have taken more out of Twitter than Twitter has taken out of me.

Yes, there are toxic elements on Twitter, as there are with any social media platform, but some discipline and good rules of engagement can help you extract enormous value from this service.

If you are new to Twitter, or ‘old’ but struggling, I suggest doing the following:

1. Follow selectively: For those interested in getting the most out of local stock market commentary – the so-called local ‘fintwit’ community – see my suggestions further on.
2. Follow some opposing views: This prevents so-called ‘echo chambers’, but make sure that the opposing views are intelligent and well argued.
3. Block liberally and respond carefully: This lowers the noise dramatically. Arguing with strangers on the internet is rarely a path to happiness, so rather don’t.
4. Turn Twitter’s algorithm off, and turn chronological tweets on: Twitter’s default setting is to insert tweets from people you do not follow on topics that you like or which are controversial. This is meant to boost engagement, but all it does is add toxic noise and it does so in a non-chronological manner. I suggest turning this algorithm off and making your timeline on Twitter reflect only those who you follow, and in chronological order (newest first). Refer to the screenshot below where you will find the obscure button that allows you to do this.

Once you are on Twitter, and assuming that you are interested in the local fintwit community, you may want to consider following these accounts …

To ensure you have the conversations of the day covered, Simon Brown (@SimonPB) is the resident host of the daily MoneywebNOW, Bruce Whitfield (@brucebusiness) has The Money Show, and Stuart Theobald (@rationalhill) is on Business Day.

Old hands at the market, David Shapiro (@davidshapiro61) and Wayne McCurrie (@WayneMcCurrie), are worth following.

Among the fund managers active on fintwit are Piet Viljoen (@pietviljoen), Sean Peche (@SeanPeche), Paul Whitburn (@WhitburnPaul), Drikus Combrinck (@DrieksCombrinck) and David Eborall (@davideborall). All are experienced, invested, intelligent and have wonderfully divergent opinions.

Anthony Clark (@smalltalkdaily) offers a view on domestic smaller caps and baking (he has a certain fondness for cupcakes), while Petri Redelinghuys (@TraderPetri) puts out shorter-term trader’s views of events, markets and stocks (when his birds let him).

The JSE tweets its own stock exchange news service (Sens) here (@JSE_SENS) and Moneyweb tweets its articles here (@Moneyweb).

These are wonderful ways to keep updated in real-time!

The Finance Ghost (@FinanceGhost) is also a good source on daily domestic news and can be quite active on Twitter too.

Moving to personal finance and investing, Moms investing (@mommy_moneyza) is wonderful for the man/woman on the street; Karin Richards (@Richards_Karin) has great company, stock and market insights; and Just One Lap (@JustOneLap) has a library of great, free educational content.

On the agricultural and soft commodities side Wandile Sihlobo (@WandileSihlobo) is a wealth of knowledge, while on the mining and hard commodities side Bernard Swanepoel (@zbswanepoel) is great.

While not strictly local fintwit, our market is intertwined with global markets, especially China, and some offshore accounts are also worth following. In global personal finance and investor psychology, Morgan Housel (@morganhousel) is notable while Sofia Horta e Costa’s (@SofiaHCBBG) daily thread on China is revealing (if not currently a little terrifying).

This is far (far!) from a comprehensive list in the ever-changing fintwit world.

Why not comment below with any accounts you would recommend and let us know why you rate them as worth following?

Keith McLachlan is investment officer at Integral Asset Management.