IU professor patents tweet-analyzing software

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — An Indiana University professor has received a patent for his software that analyzes millions of tweets to predict where the stock market is headed.

WTHR-TV reports IU associate professor Johan Bollen and his fellow researchers spent years working on the software. Financial institutions and retailers have expressed interest in the program.

The software sorts and scans a half-billion tweets per day to measure the country's collective mood. Bollen said the software picks up the most important topics, reads the tweet and assigns values to them.

IU researchers have found that when people get more anxious there is a good chance of the market dropping three or four days later.