IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finana/v81y2022ics1057521922000473.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does it really pay off for investors to consider information from social media?

Author

Listed:
  • Eierle, Brigitte
  • Klamer, Sebastian
  • Muck, Matthias

Abstract

This paper raises the question whether investors can learn something from social media sentiment that they do not already know from (existing) financial information disclosed by companies and financial analysts. Therefore, the relationship between financial information and Refinitiv’s MarketPsych social media sentiment index is explored. The paper introduces adjusted social media sentiment, which corrects social media sentiment for the impact of financial information such as earnings surprises, analyst forecast revisions, new dividends, and 8-K filings. It turns out that adjusted social media sentiment is related to subsequent short-term stock returns. This is particularly true for stocks with negative (adjusted) sentiment. Moreover, looking at long-term holding returns the paper does not find compelling evidence for reversals suggesting that (adjusted) social media sentiment reflects information about the prospects of the firm.

Suggested Citation

  • Eierle, Brigitte & Klamer, Sebastian & Muck, Matthias, 2022. "Does it really pay off for investors to consider information from social media?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finana:v:81:y:2022:i:c:s1057521922000473
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2022.102074
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521922000473
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.irfa.2022.102074?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harrison Hong & Terence Lim & Jeremy C. Stein, 2000. "Bad News Travels Slowly: Size, Analyst Coverage, and the Profitability of Momentum Strategies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(1), pages 265-295, February.
    2. Sanjiv R. Das & Mike Y. Chen, 2007. "Yahoo! for Amazon: Sentiment Extraction from Small Talk on the Web," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(9), pages 1375-1388, September.
    3. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2006. "Investor Sentiment and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1645-1680, August.
    4. Beyer, Anne & Cohen, Daniel A. & Lys, Thomas Z. & Walther, Beverly R., 2010. "The financial reporting environment: Review of the recent literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 296-343, December.
    5. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    6. Renault, Thomas, 2017. "Intraday online investor sentiment and return patterns in the U.S. stock market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 25-40.
    7. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2007. "Investor Sentiment in the Stock Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 129-152, Spring.
    8. De Long, J Bradford & Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers & Robert J. Waldmann, 1990. "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 703-738, August.
    9. Paul C. Tetlock, 2011. "All the News That's Fit to Reprint: Do Investors React to Stale Information?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(5), pages 1481-1512.
    10. Thomas Renault, 2017. "Intraday online investor sentiment and return patterns in the U.S. stock market," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-03205113, HAL.
    11. Alina Lerman, 2020. "Individual Investors' Attention to Accounting Information: Evidence from Online Financial Communities," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(4), pages 2020-2057, December.
    12. 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.
    13. Leung, Henry & Ton, Thai, 2015. "The impact of internet stock message boards on cross-sectional returns of small-capitalization stocks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 37-55.
    14. Gu, Chen & Kurov, Alexander, 2020. "Informational role of social media: Evidence from Twitter sentiment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    15. Amihud, Yakov, 2002. "Illiquidity and stock returns: cross-section and time-series effects," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 31-56, January.
    16. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    17. Bruce N. Lehmann, 1990. "Fads, Martingales, and Market Efficiency," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(1), pages 1-28.
    18. Eric K. Kelley & Paul C. Tetlock, 2017. "Retail Short Selling and Stock Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(3), pages 801-834.
    19. Ball, R & Brown, P, 1968. "Empirical Evaluation Of Accounting Income Numbers," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(2), pages 159-178.
    20. Kim, Soon-Ho & Kim, Dongcheol, 2014. "Investor sentiment from internet message postings and the predictability of stock returns," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PB), pages 708-729.
    21. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May.
    22. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Titman, Sheridan, 1993. "Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 65-91, March.
    23. Kothari, S. P., 2001. "Capital markets research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 105-231, September.
    24. Vogelsang, Timothy J., 2012. "Heteroskedasticity, autocorrelation, and spatial correlation robust inference in linear panel models with fixed-effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 166(2), pages 303-319.
    25. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    26. Jessica A. Wachter, 2013. "Can Time-Varying Risk of Rare Disasters Explain Aggregate Stock Market Volatility?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(3), pages 987-1035, June.
    27. Michael S. Drake & Darren T. Roulstone & Jacob R. Thornock, 2012. "Investor Information Demand: Evidence from Google Searches Around Earnings Announcements," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(4), pages 1001-1040, September.
    28. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
    29. Timm O. Sprenger & Andranik Tumasjan & Philipp G. Sandner & Isabell M. Welpe, 2014. "Tweets and Trades: the Information Content of Stock Microblogs," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 20(5), pages 926-957, November.
    30. Roberto C. Gutierrez & Eric K. Kelley, 2008. "The Long‐Lasting Momentum in Weekly Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(1), pages 415-447, February.
    31. Sanjiv Sabherwal & Salil K. Sarkar & Ying Zhang, 2011. "Do Internet Stock Message Boards Influence Trading? Evidence from Heavily Discussed Stocks with No Fundamental News," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(9-10), pages 1209-1237, November.
    32. 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.
    33. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:1259-1294 is not listed on IDEAS
    34. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tanaka, Yoshitaka & Managi, Shunsuke, 2023. "Attention-Grabbing ESG," MPRA Paper 116786, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Ung, Sze Nie & Gebka, Bartosz & Anderson, Robert D.J., 2023. "Is sentiment the solution to the risk–return puzzle? A (cautionary) note," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).

    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. Renault, Thomas, 2017. "Intraday online investor sentiment and return patterns in the U.S. stock market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 25-40.
    2. Xiong, Xiong & Meng, Yongqiang & Joseph, Nathan Lael & Shen, Dehua, 2020. "Stock mispricing, hard-to-value stocks and the influence of internet stock message boards," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    3. Daniele Ballinari & Simon Behrendt, 2021. "How to gauge investor behavior? A comparison of online investor sentiment measures," Digital Finance, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 169-204, June.
    4. Prajwal Eachempati & Praveen Ranjan Srivastava, 2021. "Accounting for unadjusted news sentiment for asset pricing," Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 13(3), pages 383-422, May.
    5. Fang, Hao & Chung, Chien-Ping & Lu, Yang-Cheng & Lee, Yen-Hsien & Wang, Wen-Hao, 2021. "The impacts of investors' sentiments on stock returns using fintech approaches," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    6. Szymon Lis, 2022. "Investor Sentiment in Asset Pricing Models: A Review," Working Papers 2022-14, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    7. Agarwal, Shweta & Kumar, Shailendra & Goel, Utkarsh, 2019. "Stock market response to information diffusion through internet sources: A literature review," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 118-131.
    8. 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.
    9. Mahmoudi, Nader & Docherty, Paul & Melia, Adrian, 2022. "Firm-level investor sentiment and corporate announcement returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    10. Jiang, Hao & Li, Sophia Zhengzi & Wang, Hao, 2021. "Pervasive underreaction: Evidence from high-frequency data," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 573-599.
    11. Keunbae Ahn, 2021. "Predictable Fluctuations in the Cross-Section and Time-Series of Asset Prices," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 1-2021, January-A.
    12. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, December.
    13. Marlene Amstad & Leonardo Gambacorta & Chao He & Dora Xia, 2021. "Trade sentiment and the stock market: new evidence based on big data textual analysis of Chinese media," BIS Working Papers 917, Bank for International Settlements.
    14. Béatrice BOULU-RESHEF & Catherine BRUNEAU & Maxime NICOLAS & Thomas RENAULT, 2022. "An Experimental Analysis of Investor Sentiment," LEO Working Papers / DR LEO 2940, Orleans Economics Laboratory / Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orleans (LEO), University of Orleans.
    15. Domonkos F. Vamossy, 2024. "Social Media Emotions and Market Behavior," Papers 2404.03792, arXiv.org.
    16. Blankespoor, Elizabeth & deHaan, Ed & Marinovic, Iván, 2020. "Disclosure processing costs, investors’ information choice, and equity market outcomes: A review," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2).
    17. Santi, Caterina, 2023. "Investor climate sentiment and financial markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    18. Na, Haejung & Kim, Soonho, 2021. "Predicting stock prices based on informed traders’ activities using deep neural networks," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    19. Chen, Cathy Yi-Hsuan & Després, Roméo & Guo, Li & Renault, Thomas, 2019. "What makes cryptocurrencies special? Investor sentiment and return predictability during the bubble," IRTG 1792 Discussion Papers 2019-016, Humboldt University of Berlin, International Research Training Group 1792 "High Dimensional Nonstationary Time Series".
    20. Ung, Sze Nie & Gebka, Bartosz & Anderson, Robert D.J., 2023. "Is sentiment the solution to the risk–return puzzle? A (cautionary) note," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Return predictability; Fundamental information; Wisdom of crowds; Investor sentiment; Social media;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G40 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - General

    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:finana:v:81:y:2022:i:c:s1057521922000473. 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: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620166 .

    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.