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Tech Firm Creates Trump Monitor For Stock Markets (reuters.com) 203

randomErr quotes a report from Reuters: London-based fintech firm Trading.co.uk is launching an app that will generate trading alerts for shares based on Donald Trump social media comments. Keeping one eye on the U.S. President-elect's personal Twitter feed has become a regular pastime for the fund managers and traders. Trump knocked several billion off the value of pharmaceutical stocks a week ago by saying they were "getting away with murder" with their prices. Comments earlier this week on China moved the dollar and a pair of December tweets sent the share prices of Lockheed Martin and Boeing spiraling lower. That plays to the growing group of technology startups that use computing power to process millions of messages posted online every day and generate early warnings on when shares are likely to move. Trading.co.uk chief Gareth Mann said the Trump signal generator used artificial intelligence technology to differentiate between tweets or other messages that, for example, just mention Boeing and those liable to move markets.
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Tech Firm Creates Trump Monitor For Stock Markets

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  • Worrying (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday January 19, 2017 @06:28PM (#53699891) Homepage Journal

    The really worrying thing is that he is so easy to trigger. His favourite news site is breitbart, and Twitter is largely unfiltered. How long until someone engineers a stock crash for their own monetary benefit?

    • "Trash Flash Crash" will be the phrase of 2017, because Trump doesn't rhyme.

    • The really worrying thing is that he is so easy to trigger. His favourite news site is breitbart, and Twitter is largely unfiltered. How long until someone engineers a stock crash for their own monetary benefit?

      Well, you've thought of it... so in all likelihood, has someone with something to gain. It has been done already.

      Trading.co.uk chief Gareth Mann said the Trump signal generator used artificial intelligence technology to differentiate between tweets or other messages

      Artificial or no, this represents a rare occasion to use the two words in the same sentence, doesn't it?

      • It uses AI to differentiate tweets from messages? By what, going to twitter.com instead of sms?

    • Traders will soon learn that he fires his mouth off about everything but rarely backs it up, and changes his mind about 20 times a week. They'll stop reacting to what he says because it is just noise.

      • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday January 19, 2017 @07:31PM (#53700219)

        They'll stop reacting to what he says because it is just noise.

        That is not how the stock market works. Traders will react because they think other traders will react, and they want a first-mover advantage. Other than tweeting, it doesn't matter what Trump does or doesn't do. He just needs to trigger the feedback loop.

        • Trump says X, traders jump on positions that would benefit from X to try and get out in front. However other than the speculative betting there isn't much movement. Then X doesn't happen, so there is no long term movement. The traders disengage from their positions trying to take as little loss as possible.

          This happens over and over and more will learn that acting just loses you money. It's why markets don't do fuck-all in response to Alex Jones. It isn't like his message isn't out there for the world to se

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      What do you mean, "until"? This already happens all the time, and Trump personally has probably been doing it for years.

      I'd be willing to bet that at least one person associated with the Trump crime family was buying shares in Lockheed and/or Boeing last month. Very possibly Trump himself.

      This is why the president is expected to remove his business-related conflicts of interest. Trump has made no pretense at doing that, he's just there to milk the country for all it's worth. Welcome to kleptocracy [forbes.com].

    • The really worrying thing is that he is so easy to trigger.

      "Trump took the jab personally. He filed a $5 million lawsuit against Maher for breach of contract, alleging that when he provided his birth certificate to Maher proving he is not, in fact, the son of an orangutan, Maher never came up with the $5 million" http://www.motherjones.com/pol... [motherjones.com]

  • by Notabadguy ( 961343 ) on Thursday January 19, 2017 @06:30PM (#53699899)

    Stock value these days is speculative, and has virtually nothing to do with tangible value.

    When pointing out common sense things (Lockheed asking $800,000 per round for a gun is too much) or (Pharmaceutical companies are charging more than the average american can afford) causes stock prices to plummet - they were overvalued.

    Then again, statistically rounded - 100% of trading is HFT and is a scam anyway, so....it doesn't matter. Again.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      If the soon-to-be head of the Executive makes statements that look like they're going to lead to interference in a business's activities, you're saying there ought not be some sort of inevitable alteration in that company's overall trading performance? I'm not really sure you understand what stocks are, or what a stockmarket is.

      • by amiga3D ( 567632 ) on Thursday January 19, 2017 @06:50PM (#53700043)

        Stocks were intended to be shares in a company that provided dividends in return for investment. What they actually are is gambling. People trade based on what they think a share will do and not really whether the company will actually make money. Thus when he said they were overvalued anyway he is stating the truth based on what stocks were intended to be. I remember when I thought about investing 10 grand in Amazon back in the early days. I teetered on the edge for days but finally resisted. I just couldn't bring myself to buy into something that was little more than a script running on a server. At the time they had no warehouses and distribution centers. I'm still kicking myself.

      • Lots of government announcements impact the share price of companies. If this leads companies to do things like bilk the citizens of the US out of less money to avoid getting called out, I don't think many people are going to have a problem with it, aside from those who are looking for problems to have.

        Inasmuch as this is a problem, it's because the value of companies is so speculative, i.e. what can I get another sucker to pay for this thing, rather than objective, e.g. what dividends does this pay?

      • Notabadguy is 80% wrong, and Amiga3D has some good points. But no, Trumpenfuhrer making statements should not affect stocks because EVERYONE SHOULD ALREADY KNOW. We know about the fed raising rates, we know about upcoming regulation. There are no overnight surprises from the government, statistically speaking.

        Until now, the tiny fingered, cheeto colored shitgibbon just says what's on his tiny little mind and individual 401(k) plans eat dick for a week. And the people who don't have all day to day trade just

  • by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Thursday January 19, 2017 @06:31PM (#53699911) Homepage Journal

    Wait for Trump to say something stupid that knocks a chunk of money off of a stock, wait a few hours for it to crash, buy low, and sell it after a week when the price rebounds. Once again, the ultra-wealthy with their high-frequency traders get richer, and normal people's retirement funds get poorer....

    • wait a few hours for it to crash, buy low, and sell it after a week when the price rebounds. Once again, the ultra-wealthy with their high-frequency traders get richer, and normal people's retirement funds get poorer....

      Does that require high frequency trading?

    • the ultra-wealthy with their high-frequency traders get richer, and normal people's retirement funds get poorer....

      How is a person's retirement fund getting poorer if the price of a stock rebounds in a week? Unless the person sells that stock in that short time period nothing has changed. The value of their retirement fund is the same as it was the week before.

      You could argue, unsuccessfully, that the week downturn "cost" that person's retirement account because had Trump not said anything the downturn wou

      • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        How is a person's retirement fund getting poorer if the price of a stock rebounds in a week?

        Because the stock price dropping by more than a small amount indicates a significant amount of selling, and there's a decent chance that a chunk of that selling came from big funds.

        • If you're invested in index funds, as you should be, the performance of your investment tracks the performance of the overall market, so if things bounce back in a week, it doesn't matter to you if a bunch of inefficiently human-managed mutual funds lost a bunch of money in that dip, the market is back up so so are your indexed investments and you're still doing just fine.

          • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

            If you're invested in index funds, as you should be

            Since I'm pretty young (only 30) so I have plenty of time, my plan is to wait until we have the next tech bubble crash which will likely damage the value of index funds. That way I can shift part of my 401k and personal savings into the index funds when they are low and ride the recovery wave. I'll just have to talk the wife into letting me do so.

    • Wait for Trump to say something stupid that knocks a chunk of money off of a stock, wait a few hours for it to crash, buy low, and sell it after a week when the price rebounds. Once again, the ultra-wealthy with their high-frequency traders get richer, and normal people's retirement funds get poorer....

      Unless that tweet turns into a punitive regulatory action, then you've just lost a chunk of your savings.

      Assuming dumb mistakes on the part of professional investors is a very good way to lose money.

      • Unless that tweet turns into a punitive regulatory action, then you've just lost a chunk of your savings.

        This is a good point. We've gotten used to the Prince Jeoffrey phase of this drama, but winter is coming. The King Jeoffrey phase will be much different.

        In less than 24 hours he goes from being President-Elect Trump to President* Trump, and those tweets might come with executive orders attached. (Twitter is gonna support that, they don't know it yet, but they'll do it soon, believe me.)

        *illegitimately

        • by dbIII ( 701233 )

          In less than 24 hours he goes from being President-Elect Trump to President* Trump

          Nowhere enough time for enough PEEOTUS jokes.

  • Buddies (Score:4, Interesting)

    by itamblyn ( 867415 ) on Thursday January 19, 2017 @06:35PM (#53699939) Homepage
    I just assumed he was doing this so his buddies can short the stocks
    • Re:Buddies (Score:4, Interesting)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Thursday January 19, 2017 @06:42PM (#53700001) Journal

      That may be giving him a lot more credit than he's due. I've honestly seen little indication that he's sufficiently coherent or possesses a long enough attention span to actually create such a strategy.

      • by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

        He managed to become president.
        You can't do that by being a complete retard. You can however look like a retard if it gets you votes from an important part of the population.

  • cry = buy......shit = sell.
  • So Trump has riled the markets by, so far: criticizing an overpriced aircraft, and being the first Republican to not kiss the butt of the pharma lobby.

    I'm hoping for some more Wall Street action like this.

    • Well, he also under-spent the budget for his transition. I guess that shows he doesn't understand Governmental budgeting because he's not spending it all? Or some such "failure" by not spending it all...
  • So it's artificial intelligence vs natural stupidity...?

    I knew it'd come to that someday.

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