Communication is clearly the life blood of any trading organisation, you only have to ask anyone in the city to realise this. They need to have their finger on the pulse and their ear to the ground in order to get a lead or a jump on the market before everyone else. This information tends to come from a great deal of sources, including mediums such as press releases, business statements, cable news channels and many more. These mediums have served traders well previously but they are always on the lookout for more convenient and pioneering methods for getting and giving information. The phenomenon that is Twitter is now being adopted by city traders according to National Austalia Bank (NAB), as a means of staying connected to those in the know.
Twitter has been termed a ‘micro-blogging’ entity, where people are limited to posts of 160 characters. This is something that traders really like about the site as it forces posts to be concise and avoid waffle. Users within a certain niche, such as the Beacon sector, can follow other Twitter members who they want to receive updates from, and can themselves be followed. In the modern world of city trading where companies world in global markets, people from various different countries, sectors and time zones need to have easy communication channels. This is made possible via Twitter, which allows various information and media outlets to communicate and feed off each other, often supplying information as it develops and without bias.
Some people have voiced concerns that Twitter could be used as a platform for insider trading as messages can be sent out privately to people using the site. Although supporters such as this multicore cables business are quick to point out that this was always possible via email and the real power comes from the ability to alert hundreds of thousands of people publically, which of course can be monitored for underhanded dealings if necessary