Adding value to financial news by computer

Recent advances in software permit applications where computers can intelligently process text based on its content. Since so much financial information is available first (and sometimes only) in textual form, these developments have great significant for Wall Street. The authors describe a deployed application that enhances access to financial news stories by categorizing them (as corporate acquisitions, earning reports, etc.) on the basis of their content. They go on to describe other applications possible with more advanced forms of this technology, involving extraction of key facts from certain types of stories. These applications include summarization, creation of databases from news feeds, translation into other languages, and even program trading based on news. An application in this class is scheduled for deployment in 1991