Trade Stocks Via Twitter?

For Stocks trader out there, check out this new Twitter application called PollyTrade. It could basically link your Twitter account to a brokerage account and enable you to trade stocks via the micro-sharing service. You send tweets that cause orders to be placed in your brokerage account, and PollyTrade tweets each order status back to you. This is how to use PollyTrade according to their site:

(1) Register as PollyTrade Beta User

When you register with PollyTrade, you tell our system 3 things:

a. Who you are (name, email address, Twitter username)

b. Your E-Trade account (username & password)

c. A password to protect your PollyTrade account settings (only you can review/change/delete the info you provide)

Registration only needs to be done once.Register here.


(2) Tweet your Trades

Once you’re registered with PollyTrade, you can send tweets to execute trades in your E-Trade account. PollyTrade receives your tweet and passes the order to your E-Trade account to execute it.

The tweet trading format is: @pollytrade buy/sell quantity shares ticker

So, to buy 100 shares of GE: @pollytrade buy 100 shares GE

Or, to sell 200 shares of Apple: @pollytrade sell 200 shares AAPL

The word “shares” is included on purpose. For instance, in the first example, it’s clear that you’re buying 100 shares of GE, NOT 100 dollars worth of GE.

Order Types Supported

PollyTrade supports these order types & parameters:

* Stocks
* Buy or Sell
* Market Price
* Good for Day Only



(3) PollyTrade tweets back Order Status

After communicating with E-Trade, PollyTrade tweets back your order status. This is typically a brokerage order number, but if something went wrong, you’ll receive an error message. Typically, errors occur because the original buy/sell tweet was incorrectly formatted, or because your broker refused the order. Your broker may refuse the order for a number of reasons, but typically because you tried to sell shares you don’t have or because you don’t have enough cash to execute a buy order, etc.


(4) Confirm transactions in your E-Trade Account

It’s a good idea to log into your E-Trade account every so often and confirm the trades that have been received from you via PollyTrade & Twitter. We suggest that you log in after tweeting 5-10 orders, or at least once a week.