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When can social media lead financial markets?

Author

Listed:
  • Zheludev, Ilya
  • Smith, Robert
  • Aste, Tomaso

Abstract

Social media analytics is showing promise for the prediction of financial markets. However, the true value of such data for trading is unclear due to a lack of consensus on which instruments can be predicted and how. Current approaches are based on the evaluation of message volumes and are typically assessed via retrospective (ex-post facto) evaluation of trading strategy returns. In this paper, we present instead a sentiment analysis methodology to quantify and statistically validate which assets could qualify for trading from social media analytics in an ex-ante configuration. We use sentiment analysis techniques and Information Theory measures to demonstrate that social media message sentiment can contain statistically-significant ex-ante information on the future prices of the S&P500 index and a limited set of stocks, in excess of what is achievable using solely message volumes.

Suggested Citation

  • Zheludev, Ilya & Smith, Robert & Aste, Tomaso, 2014. "When can social media lead financial markets?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 57376, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:57376
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    File URL: https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/57376/
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N0 - Economic History - - General
    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook

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