NASDAQ Closing Bell with StockTwits and Data Junkies

I wrote here that I would provide a replay of the StockTwits and Data Junkies Closing Bell Ceremony. Well, here’s a quick overview of my time in NYC, the NASDAQ Closing Bell Ceremony, and the after party.

Getting There

As mentioned in my previous post, I took this crazy midnight bus to Chinatown. The trip there was rather uneventful, until the sun came up and I couldn’t sleep anymore. This is when I noticed that the driver was driving a busload of people through busy traffic as if he was rolling in a souped up Honda Civic. He was blasting past cars like they were standing still, weaving in and out of traffic, and riding asses harder than Ron Jeremy. It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.

After getting off the bus in one piece (thankfully), I started walking around downtown New York City, which I’d never done before. I eventually made my way to the beginning of Broadway, spent some quality time with the Charging Bull, and began walking up Broadway toward my hotel.

By the way, this is about it for the pictures. Turns out I’m a horrible photographer. I either take shitty blurry pictures, or I forget I even have a camera with me.

Eventually I reached Times Square and my hotel was just around the corner. After napping & grabbing some coffee, it was time to get ready for the Closing Bell Ceremony.

The Ceremony

Upon arriving at the NASDAQ Marketsite studio in Times Square, I checked in with security, and entered the growing cluster of Stocktwits & Data Junkies. While waiting, I had a couple quick convos with some people you might know. I’d list the names here, but Warren Buffet once told me that name dropping is totally lame.

After standing around in the lobby for a bit, we walked down this little hallway to the actual studio right on the corner of Times Square. A NASDAQ representative went over the whole process with Howard Lindzon.  We then lined up to have group and individual photos taken at the podium. After about 45 minutes it was time for the show. The entire show is about 8 minutes long and here it is for your viewing pleasure. Thanks to Andrew Maiman for YouTube’ing this. He was also in attendance.

We then shuffled outside to have more pictures taken of us in front of the NASDAQ Marketsite from the middle of Times Square. While we were out there we got to see all the pictures taken inside presented on the giant video board in Times Square.  Then it was inside for the schwag bag handout. 

Schwag

The schwag consisted of a high speed, light weight Stocktwits hat, a sweet O.D. Green (PS, I <3 O.D. Green) Data Junkies T that reads “Chicks Dig NASDAQ Data Junkies,” and a NASDAQ Data Junkies Nalgene that will be coming to soccer with me every week.

The After Party

That was about it for the ceremony.  Then it was back to the hotel for a quick wardrobe change, and then off to the bar.  I hopped a subway over to Spring St and took the short walk to a bar called Antarctica.  This place was very cool because it was cheap (for NYC) and low-key; totally my style.  I said I wouldn’t drop any names, but Kim, the bartender, was a gracious hostess throughout the night.  The rest of the details of the night are a little bit vague, but I met a lot of really cool people and overall it was an experience I will never forget.

Related Blog Posts By People You Might Know

• Howard Lindzon of StockTwits – “Stocktwits and the NASDAQ… Bringing Data to the Stocktwits Community“
• Peter Corbet of iStrategyLabs – “Social Media Marketing at the NASDAQ Marketsite.“
• Andrew Maiman of Maiman.com – “Ringing the Closing Bell at NASDAQ“
• Nick Fenton of NickFenton.com – “Nasdaq Closing Bell Awesomeness“
• David Buffalo of The Buffalo Trader – “Is social media and investment information, opinion, trade sharing and perspective a good mix?”
• StockTwits Blog – “RingTheBell Contest Recap”

If you were there and you wrote about the event and you’re not on this list, please let me know and I’ll add you here.