Tracking Your Investments on Twitter

In today’s uncertain investment world, having access to real-time information about the investments you choose is paramount. One way that many are choosing to monitor their investment is through the social network Twitter. Twitter is a social media service that boasts more than 300 million users with information coming in from everywhere throughout the day. While old school investors are more focused on what traditional news outlets are saying, many new investors give their attention to the micro-blogging platform of Twitter.

Tracking Your Investments on Twitter |Real-Time Investors

One of the many reasons that investors are focusing on Twitter is because of the access to real-time information. With traditional news outlets, reporters find out about news events, write up an article, and then submit it to an editor for approval. Once the news article is actually approved, it may be hours after the event. By that time, it is too late to do anything about the news from an investment standpoint.

By comparison, with Twitter, those who are involved in the economic news can report on it immediately. As soon as something happens, people know about it on Twitter. The emphasis of sharing information on Twitter is about brevity with a character limit of 140. This means that people who are tweeting have to get right to the point and provide only the important information.

Tracking Your Investments on Twitter |Results Filtering

Another advantage of using Twitter to track your investments is that it provides you with an easy way to filter through all of the results. With over 300 million tweets coming through per day, it obviously handles a large amount of information. Without some way to filter through this, the data would be useless. Twitter is set up to handle this issue with hash tags and searches. At the top of Twitter, you’ll find a search box similar to what you would see on a search engine. You simply type in what you are interested in and then click on “Search.” For example, if you want to get the latest information about the foreign exchange market, you can type in “Forex” into the search box. Then all of the latest tweets with the word “Forex” in them will be displayed.

Tracking Your Investments on Twitter |Hash Tags

Users on Twitter also utilize hash tags to emphasize certain areas of their tweets. A hash tag is any phrase with the “#” sign in front of it. If enough people start talking about a specific topic, it will show up on the trending topics list on Twitter. Anything that is considered big news will generally have a lot of people talking about it and it will show up in the trending topics.

Tracking Your Investments on Twitter |Saved Search

For individuals who wish to regularly monitor their investments through Twitter, a saved search can be used. When you type in a search term and hit the “Search” button, the results from that search will be displayed. At the top of the search results, you’ll see a button that says “Save this search.” If you click on the search, you will easily be able to reference that search each time you login to Twitter. This is an easy way to track the information that you want to regularly keep up with on Twitter.

Tracking Your Investments on Twitter |Credible Information

If you plan on monitoring financial news and your investments with Twitter, you need to know how to go about it. In some cases, you may end up getting false information or non-credible information. To combat this problem, it helps to look for credible information from verified sources on Twitter. Most official news outlets and prominent individuals have Twitter accounts that are verified. Next to the Twitter account’s name, you will see a “Verified” emblem. This tells you that you are dealing with a reputable source that Twitter has verified. Otherwise, you may not know who you are really getting your information from.

Tracking Your Investments on Twitter |Data Interpretation

Once you have the latest information from Twitter, you also have to decide how to interpret it. Sometimes, the markets don’t necessarily react to the news like you might think they would. Because of this, you also have to use your own common sense and decide which route to take with your investments. After using your own discretion, you have to be willing to pull the trigger on your investment decisions. For example, if you are seeing a lot of negative news about a particular stock that you own, you have to determine whether the price will be driven down artificially by this news or if the company really is in trouble.

Sometimes, seeing negative news about a particular company on Twitter can create a solid buying opportunity. This sometimes drives the price of a security down to below what it should be priced at and it gives you the chance to buy.

Regardless of how you use Twitter to monitor your investments, it is undoubtedly a powerful tool that can be used for your benefit. Just be sure to take the information you receive from it in conjunction with the other info you have on the investments before making any decisions.

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