Twitter can Predict Market Movement

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A paper published by Indiana University and Manchester University suggests that social media can be used to predict market movement. Specifically Twitter was used to predict movements in the Dow Jones correctly with 87% accuracy.

This idea of mining social media for an edge in the markets has already spread to the wonderful world of hedge funds. Based in London Derwent Capital Markets launched a $40 million fund in February where the chief stategy is to use algorithms to mine Twitter for data that can help the fund predict future movement in the markets.

If the fund proves successful its only a matter of time before other institutional buyers turn to social media analysis to trade the markets. Johan Bollen an associate professor at Indiana University sheds some light on this research.

Barry Silbert: A New Vision for Capital Markets

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In this video the founder and CEO of SecondMarket , Barry Silbert, talks about his vision for the future of capital markets. Barry Silbert started SecondMarket in 2004 and has grown it into the major market place where privatly held company stock is traded. Shares of Facebook, Groupon, Twitter and all the popular privatly held companies people have grown to know are traded on Barry’s platform.

Barry has a vision that SecondMarket will become the next NASDAQ or New York Stock Exchange. His idea is that SecondMarket can provide for an alternative route for growing young companies to pursue other than going public. For example rather than a private company listing on the NASDAQ a company can one day opt to “list” itself on SecondMarket. More on his ideas and the beginnings of SecondMarket below.

Infographic: Facebook’s F-Commerce

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Two years ago Facebook began to allow brands to set up shop and sell their products through shop pages. Since then the concept of “F-commerce” has begun to drip into mainstream commerce. Social Media Influence put together an infographic walking you through the history of Facebook’s merchant platform and some interesting numbers to arise out of it. A couple pieces of information we picked out for….

  • The most liked Facebook shop is Lady Gaga’s
  • Facebook’s first retail transaction was $34 spent on flowers from 1-800-flowers (2 years ago)
  • 8% of brands have a Facebook page with the ability to transact (which leaves 92% of brands still untapped)
  • Currently $6 billion a year in retail transactions occur on Facebook
  • It’s predicted that by 2015 $30 billion a year in retail  transactions will occur on Facebook (that’s a 400% growth rate over the next four years)
  • Currently 80% of Facebook shop transactions ocur in the United States. Ny 2015 that number is expected to decrease to 53%
f-commerce

 

 

Apple Earnings Estimates: The Bloggers Beat the Pros

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This past week Apple announced their Q2 2011 earnings. As to no one’s surprise, the numbers where astonishing. Apple grew their earnings 92% year over year beating the street by a mile. But perhaps what’s more interesting to develop out of Apple’s earnings, aren’t the earnings themselves but who got them right.

It turns out amateur bloggers were far more accurate in predicting Apple’s numbers this quarter than the professorial analysts who are paid big bucks to do so. The top 10 most accurate predictions, of Apple’s earnings, were from bloggers.

The table below ranks the best to worst forcastors for Apple’s Q2 2011 earnings.

Apple Earnings Estimates: The Bloggers Beat the Pros

LINK: Facebook Shares Get Sliced Into Derivatives as Value Surges

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Facebook Inc.’s surging valuation is spurring shareholders to slice and dice their stock, giving investors everywhere from Silicon Valley to Wall Street a chance to bet on the company.

EB Exchange Funds LLC, based in San Francisco, as well as New York firms Felix Investments LLC and GreenCrest Capital LLC, have opened Facebook funds for investors looking to get a piece of the social-networking company and its half-billion users.

By creating derivatives of the stock, the investment firms are helping Facebook keep its shareholder count at 499 or less, the maximum number a company…. More

The rest of the story at Bloomberg

CoreSite Joins Ranks of Data Center REITs

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CoreSite Joins Ranks of Data Center REITsOn Wednesday CoreSite Realty Corp (COR) completed their IPO as a real estate investment trust. Listed on the NYSE, CoreSite joins the ranks of specialty REITs where the type of real estate invested in are data centers. The company offers client’s private data hosting through their 11 data centers spread across the United States.

Over the past few years data center REITs have posted a strong appreciation in their share prices. “The fundamental demand in our space is driven by the growth of the Internet, rather than employment growth or the production of physical goods,” says Thomas Ray, President and CEO of CoreSite.

Backed by private equity firm Carlyle Group, CoreSite raised over $270 million USD on Wednesday, issuing 16.9 million shares at $16 apiece. Proceeds from the IPO will be used to pay out existing private investors and pay down existing debt owed to creditors.

The Denver based company, posted $66.6 million in revenue during the first half of 2010, and reported funds from operations of $17.5 million during the same time frame.

The IPO was underwritten by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and RBC Capital Markets. Shares of CoreSite closed up 1% at the conclusion of Wednesday’s trading.

Data hosting centers are one of the fastest growing segments among REITs. As companies move forward into the digital economy, more demand will be asked of from data centers to host corporate data.