Category Archives: stock market

US financial regulator warns of ‘widespread’ phishing campaign

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An influential financial oversight organization is urging U.S. brokerage firms and securities organizations to be on the lookout for an ongoing email scam that aims to steal usernames and passwords. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, an industry-run organization overseeing brokers and exchange markets, published an alert Monday about an “ongoing” phishing campaign in which attackers are posing as FINRA executives. The messages typically include the name of the target organization in the subject line, and encourage recipients to download an attachment that requires “immediate attention.” In fact, the attachment may direct a user to a website that prompts them to enter their credentials for Microsoft Office or SharePoint, a corporate collaboration software. The notice did not cite any specific security incidents that may have inspired the bulletin. “FINRA reminds firms to verify the legitimacy of any suspicious email prior to responding to it, opening any attachments or clicking on any embedded links,” the advisory […]

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CrowdStrike stock skyrockets on first day of NASDAQ trading

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You can bet CrowdStrike executives hope the company has more days like Wednesday. The security vendor’s market value exceeded $12 billion on its first day of trading on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol “CRWD.” That’s almost four times the company’s valuation in June 2018 when it raised $200 million in its last private round, good enough for a $3 billion valuation. The California-based company traded at $63 per share, nearly double its IPO price of $34. The big money was enough to attract attention from industry experts like Kelly Shortridge, vice president of product strategy at the vendor Capsule8 and an information security behavioral economist, who spent the day watching the ticker. Remember, huge pops on day 1 of the IPO aren’t proportionally beneficial. Doubling of the stock price, in this case, means they left a *lot* of $$$ on the table. In real dollar terms, $CRWD could‘be raised $1.4 billion […]

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Hackers break into newswire services, trade on what they find

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Some financially-motivated hackers go straight for the money, but others take a more circuitous route, going after information that they can use for profit. That’s what criminals convicted this week did until they were caught in 2015, earning millions … Continue reading Hackers break into newswire services, trade on what they find→

Stock Market Prediction With Natural Language Machine Learning

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Machines – is there anything they can’t learn? 20 years ago, the answer to that question would be very different. However, with modern processing power and deep learning tools, it seems that computers are getting quite nifty in the brainpower department. In that vein, a research group attempted to use machine learning tools to predict stock market performance, based on publicly available earnings documents. 

The team used the Azure Machine Learning Workbench to build their model, one of many tools now out in the marketplace for such work. To train their model, earnings releases were combined with stock price data …read more

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FedEx attributes $300 million loss to NotPetya ransomware attack

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FedEx reported an estimated $300 million loss in its first quarter earnings report Tuesday, attributing the loss mostly to a computer virus that impacted the company’s operations across Europe in July. The package delivery company’s Dutch subsidiary, TNT Express, was infected with the NotPetya ransomware virus in late June. NotPetya hit companies in Ukraine in late June and soon spread to other countries. Much of TNT Express’s operations are based in Ukraine. The attack froze users’ computers, encrypted their files and demanded a ransom of $300 in Bitcoin to regain access.  Cybersecurity researchers found, however, that regardless of whether a victim paid the ransom for NotPetya, data on infected computers may be deleted. The earnings report released Tuesday by FedEx notes that most of TNT’s services resumed after the attack and “substantially all” its critical operational systems are back up and running, but volume, revenue and profits were  negatively impacted. […]

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Hedgefund Startup Powered By Crowdsourced Code

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In the financial sector, everyone is looking for a new way to get ahead. Since the invention of the personal computer, and perhaps even before, large financial institutions have been using software to guide all manner of investment decisions. The turn of the century saw the rise of High Frequency Trading, or HFT, in which highly optimized bots make millions of split-second  transactions a day.

Recently, [Wired] reported on Numerai — a hedge fund founded on big data and crowdsourcing principles. The basic premise is thus — Numerai takes its transaction data, encrypts it in a manner that hides its …read more

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