Business Lounge by Andre Burnett
Twitter and the stock market:
The ultimate insider trade
T
witter and the stock market: The ultimate insider trade.“Now I’ve heard it all”… Maybe I should have thought “seen it all”, since it was a headline on one of my internet news haunts that had caught my eye but the headline read, “Researchers use tweets to predict Stock Market”. I was about to file this bit of news under the category usually reserved for other pieces of porcine laundering material but I stopped to think about it for a second and then the implications of it all dawned on me. The stock market for all of its data, theories and calculations is driven at its base by us mere mortals. Our hopes, fears, anxiety, greed and all of the other feelings that are attributable to chemicals in our brains actually cause us to push the market in one way or the other. When something (media…ahem) causes us to be fearful, the market suffers and when we are hopeful or adventurous the market responds accordingly. So in theory, if we were to create something that could just record people’s feelings all in one place and give us a read-out then we could POSSIBLY predict the swings in the market. Wait, isn’t there that thing that people constantly use to vent their feelings and thoughts albeit in 140 characters or less? “Yeah genius…that’s what they were talking about”. I was suddenly intrigued…tell me more.
will be more and more people putting not just their personal information online but also their feelings. Imagine electoral processes with pundits glued to their twitter feeds instead of telephone polls or Facebook polls becoming the leading method of data collection for pre-election predictions. Twitter and the Stock Market… the ultimate insider trade?
Imagine electoral processes with pundits glued to their twitter feeds instead of telephone polls or Facebook polls becoming the leading method of data collection for pre-election predictions.
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Apparently a study was done by Johan Bollen of Indiana University that set out to prove if a study of Twitter feeds could actually predict the rise and fall of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The team of researchers picked only tweets that described an individual’s emotional state and divided them into six categories, “Calm, alert, sure, vital, kind and happy”. Associate Professor of Informatics Johan Bollen said. “What we found was an accuracy of 87.6 percent in predicting the daily up and down changes in the closing values of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.” Obviously there are a lot more technicalities that are involved in such a research but as social media becomes even more ubiquitous than ever, there yourmoney ezine
insights
The Change Factor:
The Consequences of Rebranding “Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer” - Shunryu Suzuki
B
iologically, human beings aren’t much different from other animals except for having opposable thumbs which is where the true extent of our evolution is shown. Yes, that was a bit facetious but psychologically, humans, though far more intelligent than the other inhabitants of our world seem to have a problem accepting the only inevitable thing in our existence…change.
Now that’s not to say that change is never accepted, it may take time and persistence but if a company is steadfast in its rebranding then people seem to just go with the flow after a while. Change is inevitable, inexorable, yet we hold on to the things we’re used to for dear life because a part of us possibly goes with any change that occurs around us. It is this irrational but understandable fear of change that has made executives in our biggest companies reluctant to fiddle with the way their company is viewed in the public eye even if they feel within themselves that a rebranding or even a slight logo change is the way forward. April 23, 1985 is a pretty unremarkable date to most people but it marked one of the biggest gaffes by a
company since the Neanderthal who discovered how to make fire showed his best friend the secret. Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola were involved in the “Cola wars” and Coca-Cola was desperate to apply a tourniquet to the flow of market share that was being lost to a rampant Pepsi. On the aforementioned date the Coke company announced the production of “New Coke” an updated formula of the product that was described by then CEO Roberto Goizueta as “…it is smoother, uh, uh, rounder, yet, uh, yet bolder.” His words…not mine. Well, the end result of that was a public backlash in the US that was so deep and so extensive that just three months later the company had to announce the release of “Coca-Cola Classic”. Funnily, the three-month debacle actually boosted the sales of Coca Cola with many cynics insinuating that the company had planned the entire thing.
original product and not enough new fans of the product were created to warrant the product’s heavy promotion. Now that’s not to say that change is never accepted, it may take time and persistence but if a company is steadfast in its rebranding then people seem to just go with the flow after a while. Maybe that’s just how we’re wired but Air Jamaica is becoming a more and more distant memory, as unfortunate as it might be. So we know that because of this faulty wiring in our brains there are marketing executives sweating every time a decision of this sort needs to be made. This is a heartening thought however because we are the ones who matter eventually…aren’t we? advertisment
Jamaica’s Red Stripe, with its distinctively shaped bottle has captured the hearts of many Jamaicans for close to a century but the company apparently wasn’t happy with how the beverage was doing with the younger crowd. Red Stripe Bold was introduced in 2009 and despite an unprecedented marketing campaign and an undeniably excellent product, the product just didn’t hit. Those stalwarts who loved Red Stripe still ordered their
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Identity CRisis? Cable and Wireless (LIME)
Cable and Wireless had fallen from grace in recent years since the mobile market had been overrun by competitor Digicel. The rebranding and complete image change did not help much however, Digicel still rules the roost.
Comcast (Xfinity)
Comcast has never been the best liked brand in the US but the name change to Xfinity has been likened to putting makeup on a pig. The new moniker has also been the butt of quite a few scathing jokes.
Gatorade (“G”)
Gatorade’s minimalistic rebranding to simply “G” was accompanied by star studded advertisements and a very cool marketing campaign. Too bad the public reaction was more of a “huh?” than a “wow”.
Federal Express (FedEx)
Everybody already called it FedEx anyway so why not? Great move.
Pepsi
Pepsi’s new logo just seemed to underwhelm people. It didn’t affect them much but the general consensus was a negative one.
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