No, Really, TikToks and Tweets Could Make You a Smarter Investor

How Lily Francus, Kyla Scanlon, and other breakout stars of financial social media are cutting through the noise.

Lily Francus

Photographer: Sasha Tivetsky for Bloomberg Businessweek
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When you think of the places where Internet culture mashes up with finance, you might imagine Reddit boards where bro-ish posters who call themselves “apes” gang up to push shares of AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. to the moon. Or YouTube personalities pumping crypto coins and get-rich-quick schemes. But there’s also a loose circle of posters on Twitter—affectionately known to its denizens as FinTwit—trading real ideas, along with plenty of jokes and esoteric memes, plus links to their Substack newsletters and TikTok skits.

FinTwit isn’t new, but it’s become required reading for anyone who wants to understand a market that’s increasingly influenced by what’s happening on social media. (That’s one reason many journalists, including this writer, spend perhaps a little too much time there.) Many of the posters work in finance, and it’s turning out to be a place where younger voices and women can build huge followings and further their careers.