IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/30860.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

News Diffusion in Social Networks and Stock Market Reactions

Author

Listed:
  • David Hirshleifer
  • Lin Peng
  • Qiguang Wang

Abstract

We study how the social transmission of public news influences investors’ beliefs and securities markets. Using data on social networks, we find that earnings announcements from firms in higher-centrality counties generate stronger immediate price, volatility, and trading volume reactions. Post-announcement, such firms experience weaker price drift and faster volatility decay but higher and more persistent volume. These findings indicate that greater social connectedness promotes timely incorporation of news into prices, but also opinion divergence and excessive trading. We propose the social churning hypothesis, which is confirmed using granular data from StockTwits messages and household trading records.

Suggested Citation

  • David Hirshleifer & Lin Peng & Qiguang Wang, 2023. "News Diffusion in Social Networks and Stock Market Reactions," NBER Working Papers 30860, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30860
    Note: AP
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w30860.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Deevarshan Naidoo & Peter Moores-Pitt & Paul-Francois Muzindutsi, 2025. "The South African Fear and Greed Index and Its Connectedness to the U.S. Index," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 18(7), pages 1-28, June.
    2. Hans K. Hvide & Tom G. Meling & Magne Mogstad & Ola L. Vestad, 2024. "Broadband Internet and the Stock Market Investments of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(3), pages 2163-2194, June.
    3. Graeber, Thomas & Roth, Christopher & Schesch, Constantin, 2024. "Explanations," CEPR Discussion Papers 19097, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Dyer, Travis & Köchling, Gerrit & Limbach, Peter, 2024. "Traditional investment research and social networks: Evidence from Facebook connections," CFR Working Papers 24-03, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    5. Li, Mengjia & Ding, Wenjie & Li, Hao & Wang, Qingwei & Xiao, Jason Zezhong, 2025. "Sell-side financial analyst social network and forecast accuracy," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    6. Makridis, Christos A. & Wang, Tao, 2024. "Learning from Friends in a Pandemic: Social networks and the macroeconomic response of consumption," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    7. Babolmorad, N. & Bossaerts, P. & Massoud, N., 2025. "Viral but Vanishing: Investment Advisors, Social Media, and Regulation," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2576, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    8. Dong, Dayong & Jiang, Danling & Wu, Keke & Zhu, Hongquan, 2024. "Game in another town: Geography of stock watchlists and firm valuation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    9. Cookson, J. Anthony & Lu, Runjing & Mullins, William & Niessner, Marina, 2024. "The social signal," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    10. Cao, Jie & Zou, Zhongyang & Yang, Xin & Xiong, Xiong, 2025. "How does social media shape stock liquidity? The role of investor online communication networks," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    11. Dong, Dayong & Jiang, Danling & Peng, Yuelin & Shen, Longmin & Zhu, Hongquan, 2025. "Intercity mentioning: Stock posts, city network, and firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).

    More about this item

    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
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G4 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:30860. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.