flickr.com
Research was conducted through virtual investment portfolio tracking search volumes, focusing on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) from 2004 to 2011.
Google searches on Sundays, noting words such as “stock”, “finance” and “forex”, showed investment purchase influences related to searches.
Searching the keyword “debt” showed the most fluctuation over the monitored period, amounting to a cyber profit of 326 per cent over seven years.
Buy and hold sales between 2004 and 2011 could have generated a 16 per cent profit from searches, matching the DIJA rise percentage at the time.
Dow movement-related investments could have amounted to 33 per cent income.
Tobias Preis, leading researcher at Warwick Business School, said: "All these new data resources from online activities, which are an essential part of our everyday life these days - we are tweeting on Twitter, we are using Wikipedia, we are using search engines like Google and upload photos to Flickr and share information on Facebook - all of this leaves indicators of behaviour."
Published in the Scientific Report journal, the findings suggest great potential for investor advice can be produced through Google Trends.
