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

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.

Comments

Worrying

[AmiMoJo]

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?

Re:Worrying

[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.

Re:Worrying

[greengene]

"Trumped-Up Pump-and-Dump"?

Re:Worrying

[ClickOnThis]

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

No, the really worrying part is that the stock market is so fucking fragile that such a stupid comment can bring prices down. I mean, it can't be because millions of shareholders suddenly grew a conscious and realized "y'know, he's right, they are charging too much. I'm gonna sell my stock to show that I don't support such high drug prices">

I don't know about you, but when it comes to fragility, I'm a whole lot more concerned about Trump than the stock market.

The stock market has a multitude of agents across the world, pushing in different directions. Trump is one single person who has control of the most powerful bully pulpit on Earth. You tell me what/who is more likely to fly off the handle.

And to put a finer point on it: the stock market doesn't have nukes.

Speculative Trading

[Notabadguy]

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:Speculative Trading

[MightyMartian]

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.

Re:Speculative Trading

[amiga3D]

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.

Re:Speculative Trading

[MightyMartian]

Investing is always a gamble. You're giving a company capital and hoping that that company makes sufficient money that they can either pay you dividends, or that the value of your shares go up enough that you can sell them to make a profit. A share is a piece of property, to be used either as a means of collecting dividends, or to be sold.

Re:Speculative Trading

[Bite The Pillow]

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 watch, while the 20% of HFT make billions on penny increases and front running.

Overall, stock price is a reflection of market value. But when Trumpster Fire says junk that won't happen, because the Republicans who pass the laws don't like him, that's moving prices on horseshit.

Re: Speculative Trading

[Feature Film]

Are you implying that Amazon hasn't made money in that time?

That's what we call a buying opportunity.

[dgatwood]

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....

Re:That's what we call a buying opportunity.

[chispito]

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?

Re:That's what we call a buying opportunity.

[quonset]

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 wouldn't have happened, but there is no way to know if something else would have affected that stock in the same time.

Holding on to good quality stocks and/or mutual funds will, in the end, make you more wealthy than buying and selling at the drop of a hat.

Re:That's what we call a buying opportunity.

[dgatwood]

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.

Re:That's what we call a buying opportunity.

[Pfhorrest]

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.

Buddies

[itamblyn]

I just assumed he was doing this so his buddies can short the stocks

Re:Buddies

[MightyMartian]

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.

Not luck at all

[SuperKendall]

If you followed Trump at all before the election, you'd realize that Trump is actually quite smart, and really does understand not only how the world works but is especially excellent at negotiation and hiring good talent.

Some of the things he's saying over Twitter are calibrated to make him look dumb, so that people underestimate him. It's funny to me that people say Trump has a huge ego, therefore he needs attention from press and media... it's because Trump has a huge ego that none of that matters to him. He is ecstatic that people continue to fall for the lie Trump is dumb, because it makes it so easy for him to move forward with whatever he wants to do and surprise everyone.

Re:Not luck at all

[Black Parrot]

If you followed Trump at all before the election, you'd realize that Trump is actually quite smart

I did follow him before the election, and came to the conclusion that he's as dumb as he is ignorant, and as ignorant as he is assholy.

Re:Just amazing

[Black Parrot]

No, it's what the gp said: "born rich" was his preparation, and "born rich" was his opportunity. You and me should have been smart enough to plan ahead like that.

Re:He's off his rocker

[ShanghaiBill]

1. As a senator, Hillary voted for the Iraq war.
2. As secretary of state, she supported the intervention in Libya.
3. She advocated for deeper American involvement in Syria.
All of these have been unmitigated disasters for America, so her judgement doesn't appear to be so good.

I expect Trump to be a terrible president, but his preference for non-interventionism in foreign affairs is one of his few good points. Another good point about his presidency is the entertainment value. Popcorn sales should go way up. Hillary would have been dull.

Re:It won't work for long

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re:He's off his rocker

[dbIII]

As a senator, Hillary voted for the Iraq war

As did every single Republican and most of the Democrats.

As secretary of state, she supported the intervention in Libya

As President, Reagan bombed Libya.

She advocated for deeper American involvement in Syria

So did McCain and many many others.


Now she doesn't matter. It's those many many others who wanted to act the same way who are still in power are the ones you should be taking to task unless you don't care about being seen as hopelessly partisan and amoral.

entertainment value

Get back to me in a year and let's see if you think that entertainment was worth it.

Re:Rhetoric is real

[dbIII]

The Chinese are more interested in the personal than the position. They are more likely to take Trump's insults as his word instead of dismissing his bullshit as "locker room banter".
Imperial Japan was different in a lot of ways, but the lesson of rattling sabres at them too many times resulting in the Pearl Harbor attack still applies. What we see as bluffs and bluster can be seen as serious threats that must be addressed for fear of being seen as being weak domestically and being in danger of being replaced.
If (ok, being stupid here, it has to be "when") Trump insults Xi personally then Xi has to take some sort of action or he'll soon lose his hold on power as someone else steps up to replace the "weak" leader. I can see it escalating to a cold war and proxy war level very quickly. Sadly that trust fund baby draft dodger just does not have a fucking clue about it.

Re:paying attention

[K. S. Kyosuke]

So when Trump says in public that the US should seize Iraqi oil fields for itself, it's just "rhetoric", but when Clinton doesn't say that she intends to start WW III, if you're a Trump supporter, that's exactly what she wants to do?

Re:Ignorance is definitely not bliss

[Maritz]

The reason it's "hard" to understand is because it's incoherent babble, not because it's some kind of stunningly profound insight that takes a keen mind to interpret.

Re:He's off his rocker

[Maritz]

Sure looks like his stance on vaccines is going to have an associated bodycount. But hey, it's all about the popcorn.

Re:He's off his rocker

[Coren22]

his tax evasion

If you have evidence of him evading taxes, you should contact the IRS, as it is, they have audited him ever year for a while and found no evidence of your accusation. You might be able to make a huge difference if you can bring this evidence forward.

As for Clinton, conspiracy theories about Pizzagate, Clinton Foundation, and World War 3.

Wow, just wow. You seem to have forgotten dodging the records act, having classified information on a home server, and encouraging aides to commit a felony by removing classification markings from classified documents. Oh well, Trump is so horrible in comparison...because you don't like him.