Patent ID: 8301545

Claim:
A method comprising: (a) determining, by at least one computing device and for a financial market instrument, a number of messages of a plurality of messages occurring during a time span and containing a reference to the financial market instrument, the plurality of messages including messages from at least one social networking service; (b) determining, by the at least one computing device and for the financial market instrument, a time span average, the time span average being a ratio of the determined number of messages occurring during the time span and containing the financial market instrument reference over a number of time intervals into which the time span is divided; (c) determining, by the at least one computing device and for the financial market instrument, a message count for a selected time interval of the time intervals, the selected time interval's message count indicating a number of the messages from the plurality of messages occurring during the selected time interval and containing the reference to the financial market instrument; (d) determining, by the at least one computing device and for the financial market instrument, a percentage change using the selected time interval's message count and the time span average; (e) comparing, by the at least one computing device, a plurality of percentage changes corresponding to a plurality of financial market instruments including the financial market instrument, wherein the comparing comprises selecting a set of financial market instruments, each of the selected financial market instruments having a greater percentage change than unselected ones of the plurality of financial market instruments; and (f) making available, by the at least one computing device for presentation to one or more users, the financial market instrument reference of each of the selected financial market instruments.