IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/beexfi/v46y2025ics2214635025000267.html

Tossed by the tides of emotion: The impact of online media sentiment on stock returns

Author

Listed:
  • Chang, Liang
  • Liang, Xiaojun
  • Tan, Na

Abstract

This study examines the impact of online media sentiment on stock returns using a dataset of over 8.3 million online financial media reports covering Chinese A-share listed companies. The findings reveal that more positive media sentiment towards a company is associated with higher average monthly stock returns. A zero-investment arbitrage strategy, constructed by buying stocks with high media sentiment and selling those with low media sentiment, yields a significant monthly premium of 4%. These effects are particularly pronounced for stocks with higher investor attention and lower liquidity. Moreover, even after controlling for known risk factors or during IPO quiet periods when no new information is introduced, companies with positive media sentiment continue to exhibit higher stock returns. Further analysis shows that media sentiment can explain approximately 4% to 12% of various market anomalies, and the media sentiment premium exhibits return reversals. This research uncovers the unique mechanisms of media effects in emerging markets and provides robust support for the limited attention theory from behavioral finance.

Suggested Citation

  • Chang, Liang & Liang, Xiaojun & Tan, Na, 2025. "Tossed by the tides of emotion: The impact of online media sentiment on stock returns," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:beexfi:v:46:y:2025:i:c:s2214635025000267
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbef.2025.101045
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214635025000267
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbef.2025.101045?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ortiz-Molina, Hernán & Phillips, Gordon M., 2014. "Real Asset Illiquidity and the Cost of Capital," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(1), pages 1-32, February.
    2. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    3. Paul C. Tetlock & Maytal Saar‐Tsechansky & Sofus Macskassy, 2008. "More Than Words: Quantifying Language to Measure Firms' Fundamentals," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1437-1467, June.
    4. Ahmad, Khurshid & Han, JingGuang & Hutson, Elaine & Kearney, Colm & Liu, Sha, 2016. "Media-expressed negative tone and firm-level stock returns," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 152-172.
    5. Jill McCluskey & Johan F.M. Swinnen, 2007. "Rational Ignorance and Negative News in the Information Market," LICOS Discussion Papers 19107, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    6. Pastor, Lubos & Stambaugh, Robert F., 2003. "Liquidity Risk and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 642-685, June.
    7. Daniel, Kent, et al, 1997. "Measuring Mutual Fund Performance with Characteristic-Based Benchmarks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1035-1058, July.
    8. Lily Fang & Joel Peress, 2009. "Media Coverage and the Cross‐section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 2023-2052, October.
    9. Roll, Richard, 1984. "A Simple Implicit Measure of the Effective Bid-Ask Spread in an Efficient Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1127-1139, September.
    10. Solomon, David H. & Soltes, Eugene & Sosyura, Denis, 2014. "Winners in the spotlight: Media coverage of fund holdings as a driver of flows," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 53-72.
    11. John Lintner, 1965. "Security Prices, Risk, And Maximal Gains From Diversification," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 20(4), pages 587-615, December.
    12. Cook, Douglas O. & Kieschnick, Robert & Van Ness, Robert A., 2006. "On the marketing of IPOs," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 35-61, October.
    13. Kewei Hou & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 2005. "Market Frictions, Price Delay, and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(3), pages 981-1020.
    14. Goyenko, Ruslan Y. & Holden, Craig W. & Trzcinka, Charles A., 2009. "Do liquidity measures measure liquidity?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 153-181, May.
    15. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:2:p:673-699 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2003. "Limited attention, information disclosure, and financial reporting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1-3), pages 337-386, December.
    17. Bei Qin & David Strömberg & Yanhui Wu, 2018. "Media Bias in China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2442-2476, September.
    18. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2015. "A five-factor asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 1-22.
    19. Grace Xing Hu & Jun Pan & Jiang Wang, 2018. "Chinese Capital Market: An Empirical Overview," NBER Working Papers 24346, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Michael J. Cooper & Huseyin Gulen & Michael J. Schill, 2008. "Asset Growth and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1609-1651, August.
    21. Stuart Soroka & Patrick Fournier & Lilach Nir, 2019. "Cross-national evidence of a negativity bias in psychophysiological reactions to news," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 116(38), pages 18888-18892, September.
    22. Zhibing Li & Laura Xiaolei Liu & Xiaoyu Liu & K. C. John Wei, 2024. "Replicating and Digesting Anomalies in the Chinese A-Share Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(8), pages 5066-5090, August.
    23. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1996. "Multifactor Explanations of Asset Pricing Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 55-84, March.
    24. Jiwei Wang & Kangtao Ye, 2015. "Media Coverage and Firm Valuation: Evidence from China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 501-511, March.
    25. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:2:p:507-28 is not listed on IDEAS
    26. Kewei Hou & Chen Xue & Lu Zhang, 2020. "Replicating Anomalies," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(5), pages 2019-2133.
    27. Huang, Tzu-Lun, 2018. "The puzzling media effect in the Chinese stock market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 129-146.
    28. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    29. Laura Xiaolei Liu & Ann E. Sherman & Yong Zhang, 2014. "The Long-Run Role of the Media: Evidence from Initial Public Offerings," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(8), pages 1945-1964, August.
    30. Jaehoon Hahn & Hangyong Lee, 2009. "Financial Constraints, Debt Capacity, and the Cross‐section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 891-921, April.
    31. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2008. "All That Glitters: The Effect of Attention and News on the Buying Behavior of Individual and Institutional Investors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 785-818, April.
    32. Hailiang Chen & Prabuddha De & Yu (Jeffrey) Hu & Byoung-Hyoun Hwang, 2014. "Wisdom of Crowds: The Value of Stock Opinions Transmitted Through Social Media," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(5), pages 1367-1403.
    33. David Hirshleifer & Sonya Seongyeon Lim & Siew Hong Teoh, 2009. "Driven to Distraction: Extraneous Events and Underreaction to Earnings News," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 2289-2325, October.
    34. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    35. Bajo, Emanuele & Raimondo, Carlo, 2017. "Media sentiment and IPO underpricing," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 139-153.
    36. Alexander Hillert & Heiko Jacobs & Sebastian Müller, 2014. "Media Makes Momentum," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(12), pages 3467-3501.
    37. Joel Peress, 2014. "The Media and the Diffusion of Information in Financial Markets: Evidence from Newspaper Strikes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(5), pages 2007-2043, October.
    38. Lesmond, David A & Ogden, Joseph P & Trzcinka, Charles A, 1999. "A New Estimate of Transaction Costs," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(5), pages 1113-1141.
    39. Richardson, Scott A. & Sloan, Richard G. & Soliman, Mark T. & Tuna, Irem, 2005. "Accrual reliability, earnings persistence and stock prices," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 437-485, September.
    40. Du, Hanyu & Hao, Jing & He, Feng & Xi, Wenze, 2022. "Media sentiment and cross-sectional stock returns in the Chinese stock market," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    41. Liping Zou & Kien Dinh Cao & Yishun Wang, 2019. "Media Coverage and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns: The Chinese Evidence," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 19(4), pages 707-729, December.
    42. Joseph E. Engelberg & Christopher A. Parsons, 2011. "The Causal Impact of Media in Financial Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(1), pages 67-97, February.
    43. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Livnat, Joshua, 2006. "Revenue surprises and stock returns," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1-2), pages 147-171, April.
    44. Frank, Murray Z. & Sanati, Ali, 2018. "How does the stock market absorb shocks?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(1), pages 136-153.
    45. Paul C. Tetlock, 2007. "Giving Content to Investor Sentiment: The Role of Media in the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1139-1168, June.
    46. Merton, Robert C, 1987. "A Simple Model of Capital Market Equilibrium with Incomplete Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 483-510, July.
    47. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:1259-1294 is not listed on IDEAS
    48. Miller, Merton H & Scholes, Myron S, 1982. "Dividends and Taxes: Some Empirical Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(6), pages 1118-1141, December.
    49. Robert F. Stambaugh & Jianfeng Yu & Yu Yuan, 2015. "Arbitrage Asymmetry and the Idiosyncratic Volatility Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(5), pages 1903-1948, October.
    50. Zhi Da & Joseph Engelberg & Pengjie Gao, 2011. "In Search of Attention," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1461-1499, October.
    51. Jiaxing You & Bohui Zhang & Le Zhang, 2018. "Who Captures the Power of the Pen?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(1), pages 43-96.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Liu, Sha & Han, Jingguang, 2020. "Media tone and expected stock returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    2. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, March.
    3. Ahmad, Fawad & Oriani, Raffaele, 2022. "Investor attention, information acquisition, and value premium: A mispricing perspective," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    4. Matthias M M Buehlmaier & Josef Zechner, 2021. "Financial Media, Price Discovery, and Merger Arbitrage [Who writes the news? Corporate press releases during merger negotiations]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 25(4), pages 997-1046.
    5. Hou, Kewei & Xue, Chen & Zhang, Lu, 2017. "Replicating Anomalies," Working Paper Series 2017-10, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    6. Jacobs, Heiko, 2020. "Hype or help? Journalists’ perceptions of mispriced stocks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 550-565.
    7. Chen, Shaoling & Wu, Jun & Liang, Weijuan & Yang, Haisheng, 2025. "News shock, limited institutional attention and stock market response: Evidence from China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    8. Xin Chen & Wei He & Libin Tao & Jianfeng Yu, 2023. "Attention and Underreaction-Related Anomalies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 636-659, January.
    9. Du, Hanyu & Hao, Jing & He, Feng & Xi, Wenze, 2022. "Media sentiment and cross-sectional stock returns in the Chinese stock market," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    10. Atilgan, Yigit & Bali, Turan G. & Demirtas, K. Ozgur & Gunaydin, A. Doruk, 2020. "Left-tail momentum: Underreaction to bad news, costly arbitrage and equity returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(3), pages 725-753.
    11. Bonsall, Samuel B. & Green, Jeremiah & Muller, Karl A., 2020. "Market uncertainty and the importance of media coverage at earnings announcements," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1).
    12. Zhong, Angel, 2018. "Idiosyncratic volatility in the Australian equity market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 105-125.
    13. Laura Xiaolei Liu & Ann E. Sherman & Yong Zhang, 2014. "The Long-Run Role of the Media: Evidence from Initial Public Offerings," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(8), pages 1945-1964, August.
    14. David Hirshleifer & Po-Hsuan Hsu & Dongmei Li, 2018. "Innovative Originality, Profitability, and Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(7), pages 2553-2605.
    15. Duan, Jiaxin & Kou, Fangyuan & Wang, Zining & Wei, Yixin, 2024. "When echoes surpass voices: Market reaction to forwarded news," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 96(PA).
    16. Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 2010. "The Cross†Section of Expected Stock Returns: What Have We Learnt from the Past Twenty†Five Years of Research?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 16(1), pages 27-42, January.
    17. Roland Füss & Massimo Guidolin & Christian Koeppel, 2019. "Sentiment Risk Premia In The Cross-Section of Global Equity," Working Papers on Finance 1913, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance, revised May 2020.
    18. Kim, Hee-Eun & Jo, Hoje & Ahn, Tae-Wook & Yi, Junesuh, 2022. "Corporate misconduct, media coverage, and stock returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    19. Roland Fuess & Massimo Guidolin & Christian Koeppel, 2019. "Sentiment Risk Premia in the Cross-Section of Global Equity and Currency Returns," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 19116, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    20. Mateus, Irina B. & Mateus, Cesario & Todorovic, Natasa, 2019. "Review of new trends in the literature on factor models and mutual fund performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 344-354.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:beexfi:v:46:y:2025:i:c:s2214635025000267. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-behavioral-and-experimental-finance .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.