Amid all the chaos, Twitter rolled out a useful feature that lets you search for listed company stocks and cryptocurrency prices.
To do this, users have to just type the dollar symbol followed by the relevant ticker symbol, e.g. “$GOOG” or “$ETH” (minus the quote marks), in the search bar and Twitter will display the current price. This also works without using the $ symbol in some instances, but it’s less consistent and doesn’t always return the stock or crypto prices as requested.
However, when it works, users will see a static image displaying Today’s stock price and a chart without any information about the X or Y axis. So good luck figuring that out. Presumably, it’s a price chart for the most recent closing price for that stock, but it’s not all that clear.
But if someone wants to know more details about a stock or cryptocurrency, they can hit the “View on Robinhood” button.
$Cashtags, now with data 📈
👀 $SPY 👇 pic.twitter.com/XgOK6gf02E
— Business (@XBusiness) December 21, 2022
As app researcher Jane Manchun Wong noted, the logo on the image indicates that Twitter is sourcing the data from the TradingView website. The social media company has not made it clear if it is forming any kind of commercial partnership with either Robinhood or TradingView.
Twitter didn’t specify which symbols are included in the list for direct stock price search results. The company added that in the coming weeks it will refine the user experience and add better symbol compatibility. For example, at the time of writing, stock prices from companies such as Airbnb ($ABNB) and Zoom ($ZM) didn’t show up in the Twitter search.
Chaos at Twitter
It has been a busy couple of months at Twitter since Musk’s arrival on the scene. In the past week alone, the company rolled out and quickly rolled back a policy that banned links and handles to other social networks like Facebook, Instagram and Mastadon. The company also launched the Blue for Business plan that allows organizations to identify their affiliated brands and employees with an extra badge.
Elsewhere, Elon Musk ran a poll asking people if he should step down as CEO — and 57% of users voted “Yes.” A few days later, Musk said in a tweet: “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.”
In a Twitter Space late Tuesday, Musk defended his drastic cost-cutting antics and revamp of the paid plan at the company. He said if not for these measures, Twitter would have run into negative cash flow within the next year.
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