Rainy days and Mondays always get us … downright ready to review the headlines:
•”Foot-and-mouth disease study could save millions of animals“:
Good news. Unfortunately, the study of the epidemic foot-in-mouth disorder plaguing humans has yielded much less progress.
“Lakers could end reign, Phil Jackson’s career with thud“: Say, isn’t he the NBA coach who believes so strongly in karma?
“Some hotels don’t live up to online hype, disappointed guests say“: Shocking. Turns out photos don’t always match reality, and glowing reviews can be made up. The same goes for dating sites, real estate listings, and well, anyone attempting to sell anything over the Internet. (From corporations to the eBay entrepreneur.) Back in the old days, some hotels didn’t live up to the brochure hype either.
“Wall Street traders mine tweets to gain a trading edge“: This year’s must-have for trendy traders are computer programs that “decode the words, opinions, rants and even keyboard-generated smiley faces posted on social-media sites like Twitter.com,” USA Today reported.
The idea is that since the stock market goes up and down based on the emotions of the populace, such as fear, greed and optimism — a real-time computer analysis of how people are feeling, based on their Twitter and Facebook and Whatnot musings — can help traders gain an edge by gauging the country’s mood.
The article contains this sentence: “This incoming psychological snapshot of the Twitterati, digerati and average Joe could prompt a computer program interpreting the data at a hedge fund to place a trade without human intervention in an attempt to profit from the information.” (Hmm, sounds like hype. Or garble. But if Wall Streeters are buying in, surely it must work.)
What if subversive Twitter users — tired of being monitored not for their pithy genius, but rather for potentially bigger profit margins — decided to tweet happy thoughts when they were scared, and fearfully Twitter when, in fact, they were happy. Or they might simultaneously tweet that they are ready, albeit over-optimistically, to invest in a company that doesn’t spy on them.
•”Owners of original iPads need not dump them for iPad 2“: Very reassuring to know people have permission to not upgrade.
“Stocks rally as job growth surprises Wall Street“: Traders were surprised? What happened to the incoming psychological snapshot? Guess that sophisticated Twitter analysis needs some tweaking.
“Can mobile-phone ads be more like TV? Should they be?”: With all due respect to capitalism, it does appear to be taking a good deal of fun out of all the new technology. Wall Street can interpret that as a frowny face.
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