The Cities Are Buzzing With Twitter
Ask any city trader, such as a hedge fund manager or invest banker and they will tell you that communication plays a massive role in their job. They need to have their finger on the pulse and their ear to the ground in order to get a lead or a jump on the market before everyone else. This information tends to come from a great deal of sources, including mediums such as press releases, business statements, cable news channels and many more. There is however an ever-increasing demand for information to be supplied and received faster and more readily. The social media platform Twitter is now a tool that is being used by many traders to keep up with business knowledge according to the National Australia Bank (NAB).
Twitter, which is known as a micro-blogging site, allows users to update their profiles with posts of a maximum 160 characters. This keeps the ‘tweets’ short and concise, “which is what traders like” says Henry Allan of the London Lite Trading Group. Users within a certain niche, such as the alpha wire sector, can follow other Twitter members who they want to receive updates from, and can themselves be followed. The financial sector operates in a global market these days and people need to be able to stay in touch with lots of different people who are in different countries and different time zones. Twitter allows groups of people from various sectors such as the media, banking and business to alert each other of the latest updates or discuss predicted market trends.
Some people have voiced concerns that Twitter could be used as a platform for insider trading as messages can be sent out privately to people using the site. Although supporters such as this cable ties business are quick to point out that this was always possible via email and the real power comes from the ability to alert hundreds of thousands of people publically, which of course can be monitored for underhanded dealings if necessary
