Every day, iSentium LLC, a little-known Florida-based technology company, analyzes one million tweets from traders, investors and market commentators to try to find out whether sentiment for a particular stock is generally high or low. The answer is simple: either a +1 or a -1 for each stock. Yet a handful of banks, hedge-fund firms and high-frequency traders have signed up for the daily indicator, at a cost of $15,000 per month per stock symbol. ...
Start-up iSentium analyses a 10 tweets a day from traders, investors and market commentators to gauge sentiment. They system breaks down sentences into key components and analyses adjectives and actions associated with subjects mentioned in tweets. It has million clients that are paying $15,000 per month per stock symbol. They include large quantitative hedge funds, plus traditional hedge funds, family offices and HFT firms that use the indicators for market-making strategies.