Use The News

Use The News is a  thinkorswim gadget designed especially for users who make trading decisions based on the news. In Use The News, you can read categorized news stories and place trade on the symbols featured in them. Like all other gadgets, Use The News can be displayed as a section of the left sidebar or a separate window (see the Left Sidebar article for details).

Here is how you can use this gadget:

1. Click on the 'tag' button in the gadget header. This will bring up the list of news categories broken into seven groups, each set having a distinctive color. Select categories or groups you would like to see the news stories for:

  • Industry . Selecting categories in this group will show news stories related to certain industries, e.g.,  aerospace, oil and gas, real estate, etc.
  • Asset Class. Selecting categories in this group will show news stories related to certain asset classes: bonds, commodities, ETFs, equities, forex, or options.
  • Market Session. Selecting categories in this group show news stories related to certain periods of the market session: pre-market, after-hours, or extended-hours.
  • Market Summary. Selecting categories in this group will show news stories related either to certain time or region. At this time, you can select USA to view the news related to the U.S. market. 
  • Sector Summary.  Selecting categories in this group will show news stories related to certain industry sectors, e.g., energy, financial, healthcare, etc.
  • Event News. Selecting categories in this group will show news stories related to certain company events such as mergers and acquisitions, corporate earnings, etc.
  • Trading Ideas.  Selecting categories in this group will show news stories related to certain alerts from analysts such as rating upgrades or downgrades, reports, etc.

To select all the categories in a group, select this group's checkbox.

2. Once you have selected all the necessary categories, click Save. This will apply the changes and redirect you back to the gadget pane.

3. In the gadget pane, you will see all the selected categories shaded in colors corresponding to the groups they belong to. Each category displays the number of news stories related to it. Clicking on each category will open a watch list populated with symbols featured in the stories.

4. In the watch list, you can view the news stories corresponding to symbols that made it into the category. In order to open a story, click on the triangle  at the end of the symbol line. This will bring up the news window; clicking on the title there will display the full story. 

5. The watch list can be used the same way as all other watch lists across the application (see the Watch Lists article for details). For example, consider saving it as a static personal watch list so you will be able to re-use it later on.

6. You can use categories and category groups from the Use The News gadget as keywords in Live News so only the news stories that fall into this particular category or category group are displayed.