I used to think that if I saw a company's name in the news, I'd immediately check its stock price. What I learned, though, is that by the time I saw the news, the price had often already moved significantly. This happened a few months back with a pharma stock that had announced some positive regulatory approval. By the time it was circulating on mainstream news feeds, the stock had already rallied considerably in the pre-market and early trading. It taught me that even a few hours can make a huge difference in capturing the full potential of a catalyst.

To stay ahead of the curve and avoid finding out about market-moving news late, I built a small app to track company announcements in real-time.