News In Brief

Twitter chatter predicts DOW performance, analysts say

Kai Ryssdal Oct 20, 2010

This final note today, in which I once again bow down to the greater wisdom of Twitter.

I know, I know; I’ve said it before, but this time it comes with money attached. A couple of researchers at Indiana University did some analysis. Ten million tweets over an 8-month period in 2008. They looked at them for six factors: Happiness, kindness, alertness, sureness, vitality and calmness.

Turns out they can tell within a window of 2 to 6 days whether the Dow’s going to go up or down.

There’s more to it, of course on the blog of Technology Review. You can get the full analysis here.

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