We're using Twitter to broadcast some of the interesting tidbits of information we find in our data on a daily basis. Follow us at @marketoutsider, we try and update at least once per day.

Typically we've been announcing two types of data: Overall News Sentiment, and News Volume Breakouts. Overall News Sentiment looks at the average sentiment (how positive or negative the news) for the entire day's news up to that point. News Volume Breakouts are companies that are typically two or more standard deviations higher than usual in the number of articles published about them that day. This almost invariably means something is going on with that company and there is worthwhile news to read.

For example, you might see something like:

MarketOutsider AM news volume breakouts: $ZION (+) $BA (+) $CMCSA (+) $STI (+) $SU (+) $TGT (-)

In this case, the '$' sign denotes ticker symbols, and then the (+) or (-) represent our system's take on if the news was positive or negative. Options are:

• (++) Very positive
• (+) Positive
• (=) Neutral
• (-) Negative
• (--) Very negative

The $ notation on the ticker symbols comes from one of MarketOutsider's friends, StockTwits. It allows them to track what Twitter users are talking about what stocks in real-time. Check them out!