“Social Signals” Connect Investors Like Never Before

Social media’s role in bringing investors virtually shoulder to shoulder in today’s markets is only growing. To help keep up, investors need access, plus the tools and filters that can help them make sense of the information deluge.

With the “Trending on Twitter” and “Social Signals” features on tdameritrade.com, TD Ameritrade retail clients can conduct their own research and sentiment analysis on publicly traded equities and associated brands through Twitter feeds in their brokerage accounts—no Twitter account required! If you do have a Twitter account, you can engage with the tweets as you would ordinarily— i.e., re-tweet, respond, indicate a favorite, or follow another Twitter user. 

The integration of Twitter content within tdameritrade.com gives you access to crowd-sourced market insight and up-to-the-minute information on a company and its products and brands. Similar social sentiment tracking tools had only been available through professional trading platforms. Our social media-driven tools show that we recognize not only the swelling levels of market engagement among retail investors, but helps confirm that retail trades are influencing broader market sentiment.

Trending on Twitter

The "Trending on Twitter" Dock module tracks the most-shared links relevant to traders and investors about companies and brands.  This is a potential idea-generator; you’ll typically see tweets covering the major economic events, corporate events, and product launches.  

To add the "Trending on Twitter" Dock module to your Dock

• Log on to your account at tdameritrade.com
• Open the module library
• Drag the "Trending on Twitter" module into your Dock
  

Social Signals Tab on Stock Summary

Here’s a feature designed for traders who want to take advantage of social media content as they evaluate specific stocks.  The tab (figure 2) organizes Twitter content to highlight social trends and sentiment, including:

·         Selected Recent Tweets. Recognizing that Twitter can be an overwhelming fire hose of chatter, TD Ameritrade provides a curated list of relevant tweets about the company and its related brands and products, regardless of whether the company, its ticker symbol or cashtag are mentioned in the Tweet. Tweets are filtered by LikeFolio, based on a number of factors including re-tweets and favorites, and are refreshed in near real time.

·         Social Volume. Clients get the total number of English-language mentions on Twitter of a company, its brands, and products, in the past seven days.

·         Sentiment Indicator. This shows the percentage of positive tweets about a company and its associated brands. Combining the Sentiment Indicator and Social Volume provides clients with data to compare the social sentiment and volume on Twitter between different companies.

·         Most-Tweeted Brands. Investors access a list of the top most-tweeted products and sub-brands connected with a company. So, for instance, with Apple (AAPL), that might include iTunes, iPhone, and iPad. For Microsoft (MSFT), that might include Minecraft and Xbox. You get the idea. Clients may discover unknown connections between brands and companies.

*The social data discovery, filtering and analysis are provided by SwanPowers, LLC's LikeFolio. SwanPowers and TD Ameritrade are separate and unaffiliated firms.

Social media content can be useful for researching specific companies as you make self-directed investment decisions. Please keep in mind: 

•  Anyone can post to social media without establishing any identity or bona fides 

•  Posts are not subject to fact-checking 

•  Opinions and claims may be completely without reasonable basis

 We also invite you to read this Investor Alert (Social Media and Investing: Avoiding Fraud) published by the SEC.