The jaw-dropping speed at which certain stocks have moved in response to Donald Trump’s tweets about corporate America makes it seem as if Wall Street already was waiting for the president-elect’s words. Wall Street is tight-lipped about which firms use the automatic trading programs in their bid to profit from Trump’s tweets, and it’s unclear how much of the stocks’ trading volume reflects the automated trades. “The almost instantaneous movement in stock prices following some Trump tweets, most notably for Toyota, suggest to us that traders are using algorithms that execute trades immediately,” Merz said. Trump’s market moves are “getting press now because of our next president’s propensity to tweet” and Trump’s upcoming ability to actually change the business climate, Gits said. “But it really started a couple of years ago.”There are several ways traders could profit from Trump’s tweets.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 16, 2017 11:01 UTC