That's the implication of a study published on 8 May in Scientific Reports, which looked at Wikipedia page view data from 2007 to 2012 and correlated it with changes in the stock market price for companies listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
An uptick in the number of Wikipedia page views, as compared with the average weekly views, was followed by a fall in a company's share price.
The research suggests that Wikipedia pages, which can be edited by anyone, are part of the information-gathering process for financial transactions -- potentially useful knowledge for people wanting to play the system.
"We were really intrigued by the idea that data from usage of Internet information resources such as Wikipedia might help us understand how traders gather information before making these decisions," lead author Suzy Moat, Senior Research Fellow at Warwick Business School, told Wired.co.uk.
"The connection we find between views of Wikipedia pages and stock market moves suggests this may indeed be the case. This suggests that data on people's usage of online information services, such as Wikipedia or Google may be used to anticipate decisions they might later take in the real world."
Previous research has shown that the volume of financially-related searches on Google and also the "mood" of tweets on Twitter can be linked to changes in the stock market. Big data approaches to real world trends have also shown links between web searches and flu infections."
Source: Wired, 8th May 2013
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