Selerity combs
the internet for any signs of early financial information from
companies like Twitter, and offers its services to high-frequency
traders who could, potentially, act quickly to make money on that
information.
Selerity,
a financial analytics firm, recently released a study about how news
events break on Twitter. On Tuesday, however, Selerity made news about
Twitter.
Three seconds before 3:08pm on Tuesday, Selerity tweeted what looked to be an early release of Twitter's disappointing earnings release, nearly an hour before Twitter was scheduled to announce them to Wall Street.
Six seconds later, Selerity says, shares of Twitter plunged. The New York Stock Exchange briefly halted Twitter trading as the company sorted out the mess. By 4pm, when the markets closed, the stock had fallen nearly 20%.
This is the business of Selerity. It combs the internet for any signs of early financial information from companies like Twitter, and offers its services to high-frequency traders who could, potentially, act quickly to make money on that information.
But it also serves as a reminder -- albeit an expensive one, in some cases -- of just how quickly information can spread across the internet only moments after it is published, and what it can mean for the companies involved.
"If you're in the breaking news business, you always have to be watching for these events," said Ryan Terpstra, founder and chief executive of Selerity, a New York company founded in 2008 that employs about 35 people.
Terpstra said that his company's technology detected an updated link on Twitter's investor relations Web page and followed the link to a document posted on the open internet to gain access to the information. "No leak. No hack," Selerity said in a Twitter post. Twitter did not disclose how Selerity found the early information. But in its earnings call on Tuesday, the company said that Nasdaq manages the information on Twitter's investor relations web page.
Selerity is only one of a number of companies that rely on combing through the ceaselessly flowing stream of social data to find interesting information. Dataminr, a startup based in New York, combs Twitter data and sells those insights to financial traders and bankers.
And in 2010, Bloomberg News, which operates a large financial information service, was able to find and distribute the quarterly results of Disney and NetApp before their official release.
Selerity, too, has a track record when it comes to getting financial information early. In 2011, the company published Microsoft's earnings more than an hour ahead of schedule.
Three seconds before 3:08pm on Tuesday, Selerity tweeted what looked to be an early release of Twitter's disappointing earnings release, nearly an hour before Twitter was scheduled to announce them to Wall Street.
Six seconds later, Selerity says, shares of Twitter plunged. The New York Stock Exchange briefly halted Twitter trading as the company sorted out the mess. By 4pm, when the markets closed, the stock had fallen nearly 20%.
This is the business of Selerity. It combs the internet for any signs of early financial information from companies like Twitter, and offers its services to high-frequency traders who could, potentially, act quickly to make money on that information.
But it also serves as a reminder -- albeit an expensive one, in some cases -- of just how quickly information can spread across the internet only moments after it is published, and what it can mean for the companies involved.
"If you're in the breaking news business, you always have to be watching for these events," said Ryan Terpstra, founder and chief executive of Selerity, a New York company founded in 2008 that employs about 35 people.
Terpstra said that his company's technology detected an updated link on Twitter's investor relations Web page and followed the link to a document posted on the open internet to gain access to the information. "No leak. No hack," Selerity said in a Twitter post. Twitter did not disclose how Selerity found the early information. But in its earnings call on Tuesday, the company said that Nasdaq manages the information on Twitter's investor relations web page.
Selerity is only one of a number of companies that rely on combing through the ceaselessly flowing stream of social data to find interesting information. Dataminr, a startup based in New York, combs Twitter data and sells those insights to financial traders and bankers.
And in 2010, Bloomberg News, which operates a large financial information service, was able to find and distribute the quarterly results of Disney and NetApp before their official release.
Selerity, too, has a track record when it comes to getting financial information early. In 2011, the company published Microsoft's earnings more than an hour ahead of schedule.
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