TD Ameritrade reveals social research tool
TD Ameritrade has launched a first-of-its-kind service which enables investors to analyse social media mentions of brands related to a number of publicly traded companies. The new tool, embedded in its thinkorswim trading platform, is designed to help investors discern trends and offer potential clues into a company’s sales distribution.

OMAHA, Neb.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--TD Ameritrade, Inc. (“TD Ameritrade”), a broker-dealer subsidiary of TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation (Nasdaq: AMTD), just launched a first-of-its-kind capability allowing investors to analyze social mentions of the brands that roll up to certain publicly traded companies. This new capability puts an array of consumer sentiment and brand enthusiasm in the hands of retail investors in the thinkorswim trading platform.

Tracking social media sentiment and volume of brand mentions may help investors discern trends, as well as offer potential clues into a company’s sales distribution. Wall Street analysts run channel checks for insights into sales heading into company earnings reports and same-store sales numbers. But what about Main Street? In an effort to level the playing field for retail investors, this new capability allows traders to view social data trends at the product level, review potential changes up to the past three years and visualize it in a chart showing the frequency of social posts.

The new third-party research capabilities are the result of an ongoing collaboration with social data firm LikeFolio, which is highly regarded in the industry to be at the forefront of utilizing social media data. In 2015, TD Ameritrade worked with LikeFolio to integrate social data into the research offering in the flagship TD Ameritrade platform. Based on the success and learnings of that launch, the companies worked to modify the offering to meet the needs of the traders using thinkorswim.

“Social analytics are not new to fintech,” said Nicole Sherrod, managing director of trading, TD Ameritrade. “But this lens is. This lens does not focus on what investors are saying about a stock in social media. It focuses on what consumers are saying about the products that the company makes. And like all capabilities in thinkorswim, the aperture on this lens is customizable. Traders can analyze what people think of a core brand in the company portfolio or they can look at a roll up of all the brands.”

“When traders think about social data, they think about LikeFolio,” said Landon Swan, LikeFolio’s founder. “And when they think of innovation in brokerage, they think of TD Ameritrade. It’s only natural that our firms continue to work together toward empowering individual investors with powerful social data. With this release on thinkorswim, we’re taking the first major step toward giving traders a unique data feature that you simply cannot get through any other source.”

Previously there has not been a concise way to gather social sentiment and easily turn it into research to use for investing. Now clients can chart how many mentions of a product or service happen over social media. This is not just one investor saying something specific about a publicly traded company; this analyzes mentions in social media of everything that the company offers. To make this data even more relevant, mentions are analyzed and tagged for sentiment, so investors can see if mentions about a given company are trending negatively or positively. Even more granularly, investors can filter mentions that are related to any given division of a company. For example, if a Park & Resort company also makes movies, investors can see all of the mentions that are related to just the movies.

To enable Social Sentiment, clients bring up a chart for a company (symbols can be found under the Social Sentiment public watch list) for which TD Ameritrade provides social data, then click on “Style,” click on “Settings,” and enable Show Social Sentiment under the Equities tab.

under the Equities tab. The following tickers are currently available for analysis in the tool and additional tickers added by sector on an ongoing basis: AMZN KO AAPL DIS TWTR LNKD WMT MCD TGT WTW HD LULU LOW FB TGT GOOGL YHOO EBAY NFLX PEP SBUX GRPN MSFT NKE BABA



For more information on the new social media capabilities, visit http://tlc.thinkorswim.com/center/video/videos/Social-Sentiment.

Past performance of a security, strategy or index is no guarantee of future results or investment success.

Inclusion of specific security names does not constitute a recommendation from TD Ameritrade to buy, sell, or hold.

Social data should not be used alone when making investment decisions. Please consult other sources of information and consider your individual financial position and goals before making an independent investment decision.

For the latest TD Ameritrade news and information, follow the Company on Twitter, @TDAmeritradePR.

Source: TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation

About TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation

Millions of investors and independent registered investment advisors (RIAs) have turned to TD Ameritrade’s (Nasdaq: AMTD) technology, people and education to help make investing and trading easier to understand and do. Online or over the phone. In a branch or with an independent RIA. First-timer or sophisticated trader. Our clients want to take control, and we help them decide how — bringing Wall Street to Main Street for more than 40 years. An official sponsor of the 2014 and 2016 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Teams, TD Ameritrade has time and again been recognized as a leader in investment services. Please visit TD Ameritrade’s newsroom or www.amtd.com for more information.

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