Social trading and investing network eToro has partnered with Twitter; enabling Twitter users to instantly see real-time prices for a far wider range of stocks, crypto and other assets when using the $Cashtags feature.
‘Cashtags’ have existed on Twitter since its launch in 2012. Initially, the feature meant that you could click on ticker symbols preceded by a dollar sign (e.g. $BTC), and see search results about corresponding stocks and companies.
December 2022 saw Twitter announce an upgrade to the long-term feature; including pricing graphs to the search feature. These graphs offered users real-time trading data provided by the markets charting platform TradingView. However, this feature wasn’t particularly wide-reaching and only included some assets and shares of certain companies, including the likes of Elon Musk‘s Tesla.
$Cashtags, now with data 📈
👀 $SPY 👇 pic.twitter.com/XgOK6gf02E
— Twitter Business (@TwitterBusiness) December 21, 2022
Twitter and eToro’s new partnership looks to further improve these features – by expanding the number of included $Cashtags “hugely”; according to an eToro press release. The move also enables Twitter users to click through to the eToro platform to access more information on the asset. Investment in the said asset will also be possible through the eToro platform.
The feature has seen widespread adoption with more than 420 million searches for $Cashtags since the start of the year. There are on average 4.7 million $Cashtag searches a day – with activity increasing around prominent earnings announcements. On 2 February 2023, when Apple released its Q4 22 earnings, $cashtag searches hit 8 million. The most commonly used $Cashtag was $TSLA (Tesla), with $SPY (SPDR S&P 500 ETF) and $BTC (Bitcoin) also ranking in the top 5.
The partnership will cover $Cashtags representing a wide range of instruments on the eToro platform, from stocks and ETFs to crypto and commodities.
Increased use of $Cashtags represents a growing trend of financial discourse on Twitter. In the first 90 days of 2023, there were 498 million tweets about business and finance globally.
‘Where millions of ordinary investors go every day to access financial news’
Yoni Assia, CEO and co-founder of eToro, explained the decision to partner with Twitter: “Financial content on social media has provided education to many who have felt excluded by more traditional channels. Twitter has become a crucial part of the retail investing community – it’s where millions of ordinary investors go every day to access financial news, share knowledge and converse.
“As the social investing network, eToro was built on these very principles – community, knowledge-sharing and better access to financial markets. There is power in shared knowledge and by transforming investing into a group endeavour, we can yield better results and become more successful, together.”
Chris Riedy, vice president, global sales and marketing at Twitter, explained the importance of such a change on the social media platform. Riedy said: “Twitter is what’s happening and what people are talking about right now. We believe real change starts with conversation and finance and investing are a growing part of that conversation. We are pleased to partner with eToro to provide Twitter users with additional market insights and greater access to investment capabilities. Twitter will continue to invest in growing the #FinTwitter community.”
