Trump & Dump ’bot/concept
T3’s Cannes award-winning algorithm ‘bot traded stocks automatically off Trump tweets
Innovation: Copywriting/naming, creative director, video concept/scripting/production, voiceover
Collaborators: Dan Mills, Adam Kneisler, Reid Hildebrand, Brianne Boland
Back before Twitter dumped Donald Trump, we built an sentiment-sniffing algorithm to review, analyze, and make automated stock trades. Every time Trump dogged a company (Delta, Toyota, etc.) in his Tweets, our algorithm would analyze it and short-sell the stock for the company within milliseconds. When the stock tanked, we made money.
Across several months, we generated more than $47,000 in short-sell stock trades, completely without human intervention. We donated all the money to Austin Pets Alive and the ASPCA.
The “Trump & Dump” bot became a global media phenomenon and was shortlisted at the Cannes Lions.
Trump tweets.
Stocks tanked.
An idea — and an algorithm — was born.
From a goofy idea shared over Slack (“You could make a fortune short selling stocks Trump disses”) to an algorithm and flow worked up in an afternoon, the Trump & Dump bot wasn’t much more than a piece of code.
It needed a front end. I stepped in to name it (“Trump” and “dump” in the same sentence FTW), then worked with animator Reid Hildebrand to craft a front end story explaining how it worked.
Within days, we were fielding calls from all over the world, as our bot was ringing up big profits we donated to the ASPCA and Austin Pets Alive.
The Trump & Dump bot is an automated ‘bot. Here’s how it worked.
Trump tweets, dogging some company.
The algorithm assesses sentiment, triggering the ‘bot to work.
Stock information is assembled from data points.
The ‘bot buys short on the targeted stock.
The stock tanks.
The ‘bot sells short, netting a profit.
Over several weeks, the ‘bot generated eight automated trades, never once misfiring.
Algorithms, ‘bots,
and shorts.
In milliseconds.
International acclaim. Cannes shortlist. Yuuuuge results.
Results overview video
