The Twitter-24/7 Wall St. Market Report (9/27/2010) M&A: Southwest, Unilever

Twitter has, by most estimates, 100 million members, which makes it one of the largest social networks in the world. All major media companies are on Twitter and some have more than one million Twitter users. It raises the question of whether there is wisdom in crowds.

24/7 Wall St. will look at the Twitter posts at Reuters Biz, WSJ, Financial Times, CNN Money, MarketWatch, CNBC, and 24/7 Wall St. each day to see which stocks are most frequently mentioned. It is clear that in this area of social media these tweet are a sign of which companies the Twitter universe is interested in. These financial sites are followed by a combined 625,000 Twitter users which makes them a sizeable sample of Wall St.’s interests. In some cases, we will publish the actual tweets from the sites.

The Atlantic: Each adult in America, on average, is $10,000 in the hole. That figure was just $1,100 in 1948: http://bit.ly/9Ckp40

CNN Money: Southwest to acquire AirTran http://bit.ly/9rRZaB

Reuters Biz: Southwest to buy AirTran for $1.04 billion http://dlvr.it/60qP0

Reuters Biz: AIG, U.S. move closer to deal on bailout exit: sources http://dlvr.it/60mtC

Reuters Biz: Unilever buys Alberto Culver for $3.7 billion http://dlvr.it/607b2

MarketWatch: AirTran shares jump 64% in premarket trading on $1.4 billion bid from Southwest http://on.mktw.net/cgS7Fe

MarketWatch: Unilever to buy Alberto Culver for $3.7 billion cash http://on.mktw.net/cgQDpz

Douglas A. McIntyre