News Feeds
News feeds deliver headlines and stories to traders, often in machine readable form. Learn the main sources, latency, how algorithms parse news and the risks.
News moves markets, and traders compete to receive and act on it first. News feeds deliver headlines, full stories, press releases, regulatory filings and economic data to trading desks, often within milliseconds. Many feeds now come in machine readable formats, tagged with company identifiers and topics, so algorithms can trade on them automatically. Understanding how news reaches markets helps traders know when they can realistically compete and when they are already too late.
Types of news sources#
| Source | Examples | Speed |
|---|---|---|
| Professional newswires | Bloomberg, Reuters (LSEG), Dow Jones | Very fast; widely used by institutions |
| Company press releases | Distributed through services like Business Wire and PR Newswire | Released at set times, often outside market hours |
| Regulatory filings | SEC EDGAR (8 K, 10 Q, Form 4) | Fast, but requires parsing |
| Government data | BLS, BEA, central banks | Released at scheduled times; some through secure lockups |
| Specialised low latency feeds | Machine readable headlines and economic data | Microseconds to milliseconds |
| Social media and online news | X (Twitter), Reddit, blogs | Fast but noisy and unverified |
Machine readable news#
Vendors provide news feeds with structured fields:
- Entity tags: which companies, countries or assets a story concerns.
- Topic codes: earnings, mergers, management changes, legal issues.
- Sentiment scores: positive, negative or neutral.
- Novelty and relevance: whether a story is new or a repeat.
Algorithms use these fields to filter, score and trade news. See Social and News Sentiment.
Scheduled vs unscheduled news#
| Type | Examples | Trading approach |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled | Economic data, earnings, central bank decisions | Prepare in advance; know consensus. See Trading Economic Releases |
| Unscheduled | Mergers, lawsuits, geopolitical events, executive departures | Speed and judgement matter |
Fake news and errors#
Markets have reacted to false headlines:
- April 2013: a hacked Associated Press Twitter account posted a fake report of explosions at the White House; the Dow fell about 140 points within minutes before recovering.
- Erroneous wire stories and premature releases occasionally move stocks briefly.
Verification matters. Algorithms and traders who react instantly can be caught by false information.
Using news without being the fastest#
Most traders cannot compete on speed. Alternatives include:
- Trading the second move after the initial reaction. See News Trading.
- Event driven analysis: judging the medium term impact more accurately than the market. See Event-Driven Trading.
- Aggregated sentiment over days or weeks rather than seconds.
- Monitoring filings that receive less attention, such as insider purchases.
Costs and access#
Professional terminals and low latency feeds cost thousands of dollars a month or more. Retail traders typically use broker news services, free financial sites and social media, which are slower but sufficient for longer horizon trading.
Frequently asked questions#
What is a news feed in trading?#
A service that delivers headlines, stories, press releases and data to traders, often in machine readable form for automated analysis.
Can retail traders compete with algorithms on news?#
Rarely on the first reaction, which takes milliseconds. Retail traders usually do better trading the follow through or longer term implications.
What is machine readable news?#
News delivered with structured tags such as company identifiers, topics and sentiment scores, so computer programs can process and trade on it.
Next, learn how investor mood is measured in Sentiment Data.
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Mentioned in
- Fundamental DataData and Alternative Data