Look to Twitter, not Google for investment tips

Discussion in 'Stock Market Forum' started by baudwalk, Apr 7, 2016.

  1. baudwalk

    baudwalk Senior Investor

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    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-markets-saft-idUSKCN0X32ME
    Interesting piece, with links to the studies. I'm not terribly surprised that Twitter -- and its corollary StockTwits -- Twitter has better currently breaking news and comments versus the slower-to-update search engine of Google (or Bing and Yahoo!). The trick to mining Twitter is an effective search of terms and hashtags. In addition, Twitter has just upgraded its direct messaging. I still wonder why Google hasn't snapped up the company as, IMHO, Google's social forays (now exemplified by Plus) have been pathectic. On the other hand, one might speculate, Google would make a mess of the service.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 8, 2016
  2. Corzhens

    Corzhens Senior Investor

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    I agree that Twitter can also be a trove of information particularly the current events like investment tips. But you need to be in the right connections because there are bogus groups in Twitter that fabricate false information. Now that it is election year, expect a smear campaign being launched in the Twitter world. Back to investment tips, I believe that stock traders are having their day in the Twitter world because the tipsters in the horseracing are also doing the same - sending their own tips via Twitter.
     
  3. DangerSuit

    DangerSuit Member

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    I'm skeptical about using Twitter as a service to predict anything. I ran a data mining operation to calculate odds of political outcomes using Tweets and the social media site came up with the exact opposite result to what happened in reality. The signal v noise problem is always going to be incredibly high on a completely open service like Twitter. Better to come to a dedicated site or forum (like this) to receive advice from only those people who are serious about investment.
     
  4. GiltEdged

    GiltEdged Active Member

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    With Twitter my attitude tends to be "Trust, but verify". It is good for bringing up places and companies I might not have looked at, but its not really reliable enough to make decisions based purely on it.

    While Twitter is a treasure-trove of information, and a useful place to start looking for tips, I don't think it is where you should stop looking. If I see something on it that looks interesting, I'll check through several other sources first to get a full picture before making investment decisions, and try to get a full picture.

    However it can be useful for managing existing investments. If you set it to flag gossip about a firm you are following or investing in, you know when people start talking about it, and if you limit that to stories from newspaper sources or other official groups, you can get a warning before a major story really breaks. Twitter from those sources tends to update before the email newsletter subscribers have picked their emails up, giving a little time advantage.
     
  5. baudwalk

    baudwalk Senior Investor

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    +1 GiltEdged, exactly. Over the years I have curated the group of those I follow for business, investing and mass media to limit the signal-to-noise ratio that DangerSuit refers to. For the most part, I think I have the S/N under control. Additionally, I check Seeking Alpha and StockTwits using my portfolio and watchlists to limit the noise. Twitter isn't a definitive source of information, but I find it useful for instantaneous/breaking stuff.
     
  6. pwarbi

    pwarbi Senior Investor

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    While I think that Twitter can be full of useful information, as with every other social networking you have to be careful what you do and don't believe.

    With a platform that covers that many people, one tweet off a well respected tipster could send a price sky rocketing or crashing, so before you act on a tip, it's best to make sure the information is legitimate before you go diving in head first.
     
  7. rz3300

    rz3300 Guest

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    Well I would have to guess that this would really surprise most people. I think that it has become pretty natural for everyone around my age and older to say Google it and use Google as a verb, meaning it is just that entrenched in how we use the internet. I am thinking that the younger generation is choosing their own way of doing this and using Twitter instead. I am sure there is more to it, but that is what it looks like from the outside.
     
  8. moneyman

    moneyman Well-Known Member

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    I have been actually followed investors in Twitter for a couple of years to get useful tips and most of them has been accurate. There are millions of investing blogs to be found in Google although you never know who has written them. In twitter you may say who is actual investor and who is not by looking at the following count.
     
  9. tskier01123

    tskier01123 Member

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    This is great information. I'm just dabbling in the stock market now. I like that there are set trading hours, unlike the FOREX, but being West coast it's pretty early for me. I'm finding more and more that trading is all about the information that you have and twitter is a great place to get a live feed of information. I'll keep my eye out on this more and more, thanks for posting!
     
  10. petesede

    petesede Guest

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    I do not think the idea is to actually use twitter to predict anything, I think it is to get news faster, or get smaller news or bits of information that aren´t readily available anywhere else before the big boys get it. This is a huge deal for mid-cap companies where you usually have one wall street person per company covering dozens of companies. It is easy for news about a company to go under the radar, even for those assigned to follow it for a few hours or even a day. If you can beat the big boys by a few hours, you can be the owner before the move.
     

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