Hasta La Gadget!

Honestly, it shouldn’t come as any shock: the microblogging service that made it perfectly acceptable to deliver huge, huge news in 140 characters or less has just done precisely that. Twitter has announced that it has “confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO,” but details beyond that are being kept under wraps. What’s it mean? Those with equity in the company are about to become mind-numbingly rich; Wall Street is about to lose its gourd about getting in early; and end-users like yourself should start worrying about ads, ads everywhere.

Filed under: Internet

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Source: Twitter

In this episode of “What could possibly go wrong?!“, allow us to introduce you to DCM Dealer. Billed as an “online trading platform,” this here project was whipped up by the same London-based investment outfit (DCM Capital) that went belly-up after losing some $40 million in assets in just one month during the summer of 2011. Granted, that was a pretty tough time in the market, and it did manage to squeeze out a 1.9 percent gain in the period it was open, but it’s still worth keeping in mind. Now, the firm is hoping to catch a second wind with a tool that mines Twitter, Facebook, and the whole of social media in order to pick up clues about the public’s view on a stock. Reportedly, it’ll spit out real-time ratings from 0 (negative) to 100 (positive), giving investors yet another “leading indicator” on what to invest in flip for a quick buck.

Founder Paul Hawtin confesses: “This is not some kind of holy grail of buy-sell signals that’s guaranteed to make you money. This is an additional layer of market information…markets are driven by greed and fear, so if you can understand fear and quantify it in real-time, you could use that to protect yourself.” We’ll leave it to the 99 percent to comment on the idea below.

Filed under: Internet, Alt

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Source: CNBC, DCM

Humans never learn and apparently neither do robots. Autonomous trading AIs went on a spending spree at Knight Capital Group in New Jersey this week, buying up shares in everything from RadioShack to Ford and American Airlines (ouch) in a 45-minute frenzy of disobedience. The company tried to offload the unwanted stock, but discovered it was already nearly half a billion dollars in the red — enough to wipe out its entire profit from 2011 and “severely impact” its ability to conduct business. If only it had protected itself with one of these.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Robots, Software

Robot stock traders lose $440,000,000 in 45 minutes, need someone to spell it out originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Aug 2012 10:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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