fintopic.

Guide · 6 min read · updated 1 Oct 2026

Screening for unusual news attention

Which names is the news suddenly talking about? One request ranks every symbol by its change in mentions, outlets and tone, and one more does the same for sectors. Then filter it the way a quant should.

On this page
  1. Today's movers
  2. Filter it
  3. The week's leaders
  4. Sectors

A screener over news attention answers a question price screeners can't: what is everyone suddenly writing about? /v2/symbols computes it for every entity in one response: mentions (statements), the topics and distinct outlets behind them, the sentiment split, and the change against the previous period.

Today's movers

period=d compares the last 24 hours with the 24 hours before; sort=change puts the biggest increases first:

You need a RapidAPI key to run the examples: the free plan is enough.

curl
curl -G https://finance-pulse.p.rapidapi.com/v2/symbols \
  --data-urlencode "period=d" --data-urlencode "sort=change" --data-urlencode "min_mentions=5" \
  -H "X-RapidAPI-Key: YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY" -H "X-RapidAPI-Host: finance-pulse.p.rapidapi.com"
Output · captured 1 Oct 2026 13:37 UTC
id        kind       mentions  previous  change  sources   score
MU        equity           60        21     +39       24   +0.67
US10Y     rate             28        11     +17       14   -0.96
SPX       index            22         9     +13       12   -0.09
BOJ       org              13         1     +12        8   -0.15
IXIC      index            16         4     +12       10   +0.62
ECB       org              12         1     +11        7   -0.33
GOOGL     equity           34        23     +11       25   +0.21
BAC       equity           14         4     +10        8   -0.07
F         equity           18         8     +10        8   -0.39
DELL      equity            8         0      +8        5   +0.62
FTC       org               8         0      +8        8   -0.88
0700.HK   equity            7         1      +6        4   +0.29
BTC       crypto           33        27      +6       12   +0.18
MKC       equity            6         0      +6        3   +0.33

Read it like a quant, and it is already telling stories: Micron's quarter (MU, 60 statements against 21 the day before, from 24 outlets), the bond sell-off (US10Y, score −0.96), central banks (BOJ, ECB). Every row also says what kind of thing it is, and that is what makes the list usable.

Filter it

A symbol is an entity: an equity or ETF under its ticker (MU, 0700.HK, SAN.PA), or an index, rate, currency, crypto asset, commodity, organisation or private company under a short code (SPX, US10Y, USD, BTC, GOLD, FED, OPENAI). Each row carries its kind and name, and kind= filters on the server. Two rules turn the movers into candidates:

Python
import requests

API = "https://finance-pulse.p.rapidapi.com"
HEADERS = {"X-RapidAPI-Key": "YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY", "X-RapidAPI-Host": "finance-pulse.p.rapidapi.com"}

rows = requests.get(f"{API}/v2/symbols", headers=HEADERS,
                    params={"period": "d", "sort": "change", "min_mentions": 5,
                            "kind": "equity,etf"}).json()["data"]      # tradable tickers only
candidates = [r for r in rows if r["sources"] >= 3]                     # one outlet repeating itself is not attention
for c in candidates[:8]:
    print(f"{c['id']:<11} {c['change']:>+4} mentions  {c['sources']:>3} outlets  score {c['score']:+.2f}  {c['name']}")
Output · captured 1 Oct 2026 13:37 UTC
MU           +39 mentions   24 outlets  score +0.67  Micron Technology Inc
GOOGL        +11 mentions   25 outlets  score +0.21  Alphabet Inc Class A
BAC          +10 mentions    8 outlets  score -0.07  Bank of America Corp
F            +10 mentions    8 outlets  score -0.39  Ford Motor Company
DELL          +8 mentions    5 outlets  score +0.62  Dell Technologies Inc
0700.HK       +6 mentions    4 outlets  score +0.29  Tencent Holdings Ltd
MKC           +6 mentions    3 outlets  score +0.33  McCormick & Company Incorporated
INFY          +5 mentions    5 outlets  score +0.33  Infosys Ltd ADR

The rates, indices and central banks are gone. Further down the list the outlet rule starts to bite: INTC gained 5 mentions, but from two outlets.

The week's leaders

period=w and sort=mentions give the steady leaders rather than the jumps:

Output · captured 1 Oct 2026 13:37 UTC
NVDA 290  META 208  OPENAI 182  ANTHROPIC 147  MU 140  BTC 135  MSFT 121  TSLA 120  GOOGL 112  FED 103  AAPL 98  AMD 89  ORCL 88  AMZN 79  XRP 79  UST 72  USD 70  GOLD 65  SPACEX 65  SPX 64

OPENAI, ANTHROPIC and SPACEX are kind private: some of the week's most-discussed companies have no ticker, which is why they are entities rather than missing.

Sectors

/v2/sectors returns the same statistics for the 11 GICS sectors, a cheap read of where the news flow is moving:

Output · captured 1 Oct 2026 11:34 UTC
sector                   mentions  change   score
Financials                   1038    +140   -0.18
Energy                        439     +71   -0.16
RealEstate                    195     +55   -0.11
HealthCare                    199     +13   +0.02
Utilities                      50     +10   +0.08
Industrials                   123      +6   +0.09
ConsumerStaples                 7      +2   +0.00
Materials                      91      -6   -0.05
CommunicationServices         105     -28   +0.10
ConsumerDiscretionary         408     -44   -0.05
InformationTechnology         736    -138   +0.26

Financials (+140) and Energy (+71) took over the day's news from InformationTechnology (−138), the rates story again.

Run this yourself: get a free API key on RapidAPI ↗. The free plan is enough for every example in this guide.