Information moves markets, even when it’s in the form of a tweet. By analysing news flow and social media posts to calculate consumer, business and investor sentiment, we can better assess where markets are headed. Sentiment data is more timely than corporate and macroeconomic data, making it particularly useful during periods of extreme volatility. In our latest podcast instalment, our CIO Valentijn van Nieuwenhuijzen and Richard Peterson, CEO of MarketPsych, explore the benefits and challenges of measuring and using sentiment data. They explain how they expect the use of sentiment data to evolve and discuss the need for human creativity alongside machine learning inputs. “It is man and machine together,” says Van Nieuwenhuijzen, “that provide the most robust decision-making and therefore the best investment results.”