The Twitter-24/7 Wall St. Market Report (4/7/2011) ECB Rate Increase, US Jobless Claims, Monthly Retail Sales

Twitter  has, by most estimates, 175 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 tweets are a sign of which companies the Twitter universe is interested in. Together, these financial sites are followed by nearly 1,000,000 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.

MarketWatch: Week’s initial claims for jobless benefits drop by 10,000 http://on.mktw.net/gOo2sZ

MSNBC: Retailers’ March sales not as bleak as expectedhttp://on.msnbc.com/g73iV8

Zerohedge: Despite March Drop From All Time High, Near Record Food Prices Predict Jump In Headline Inflation http://is.gd/VK46Za

Reuters: Retailers’ March sales not as bleak as expectedhttp://dlvr.it/MlNYR

NYT: European Central Bank Raises Benchmark Rate for First Time Since July 2008

CNN: European Central Bank raises key interest rates by a quarter percentage point, first increase since July 2008.http://CNNMoney.com

MarketWatch: European Central Bank lifts key rate to 1.25% from 1% http://on.mktw.net/dVHI3Z

CNBC: European Central Bank raises main interest rate by a quarter point to 1.25 percent – how’s market reacting?http://bit.ly/b61Zxa

Douglas A. McIntyre