Aimed at high-frequency traders, Thomson Reuters News Analytics scours and interprets information from around 50,000 news sites and four million social media sites.

Blogs, social-networking and commentary sites have gained huge influence in financial markets in recent years, while 35% of quantitative firms are using some kind of machine readable newsfeed, up from two per cent just three years ago, according to Aite Group.

The new service provides users with analytics such as sentiment, relevance and novelty indicators that capture market opinion for algorithmic trading systems and risk management, helping them to quickly sift through the noise and better interpret the waves of online data.

Using information delivered by Moreover Technologies, an aggregator of global news and social media, the Thomson Reuters News Analytics software is available as a deployed offering or can be hosted in Elektron.

Data can be aggregated at the stock, sector, market, and country levels to track sentiment on desired parameters. Customers have the ability to filter the available content to hone in on specific information sources they want to target and tap analytic tools to spot trends and anomalies.

Rich Brown, head, quantitative and event driven trading solutions, Thomson Reuters, says: "This launch will give investors additional capabilities to gauge stock, sector, and market sentiment, and to translate these emerging sources of market insight into data that can be incorporated into both quantitative strategies and as a way to provide a broader context to human analysts."