StockTwits vs. James Bond vs. Goldman Sachs

Traders turn to StockTwits for ideas

About 90,000 people have signed up to the site which sees those trading the market tweet their view on a stock. These are then displayed in a rolling format on StockTwits. Of the 90,000 about 15,000 tweet.

Meanwhile...

Firm brings choppers, spy cameras to oil data game

Kentucky-based Genscape Inc, which has been selling power supply data since it was founded in 1999, has been flying a helicopter over the nation's top oil storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, every Friday since January, snapping photos to see how full the tanks are.

The data from the pictures, along with infrared scans for tanks with fixed instead of floating roofs, is analyzed by a sophisticated computer program back at the head office to calculate the volume of oil in storage.

This is a reminder to me that the odds of making serious money as a modern worker in the day trading industry are laughably small. I simply do not have a helicopter and therefore would not be able to compete effectively. I also do not have the resources of Goldman Sachs. Go figure.

Goldman's big rebound raises some eyebrows

But critics accuse the investment bank of greed and profiting from others' weak spots, and they haven't been kind in characterizing Goldman. Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz at Columbia University likens Goldman's business to gambling, because in the last two quarters the largest growth came from its trading desks. In the second quarter, its revenue from trading and investing in stocks, bonds and currencies nearly doubled to $10.8 billion.

"Goldman's activity is of negative social value. Its recent profits came from trading, which basically amounts to profiting from insider information at the expense of others," says Stiglitz.

And lastly...

Investors are thrilled yet anxious about stock market rally

"I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared," Leon said. "Why are we up, especially with unemployment as high as it is? I don't feel great because I worry that we could have a 500- or 600-point drop in a day and I won't be quick enough to pull out of it in time."

...

"Every single day I get ready to click the sell button and pull my chips off the table," Murphy said. "It's confusing, and I'm afraid of what to do and afraid we could be in a bubble. The market's looking floppy, and the reasons for growth don't make sense."

...

Anthony Costantino, who lives in downtown L.A. and works in the billing department of a nonprofit organization, just opened an account that he plans to fill with technology stocks at a clip of $500 a month. He knows he's missed the rally since March but believes a bigger surge lies ahead.