IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v46y2022ipas1544612321003135.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fear and hope in financial social networks: Evidence from COVID-19

Author

Listed:
  • Al Guindy, Mohamed

Abstract

This paper examines the diffusion of COVID-19 news on social media using a large sample of approximately 45 million tweets. Using textual analysis, I identify tweets containing COVID-19 news, and construct an index representing the intensity of Twitter discussions. Moreover, I use retweets and favorites as additional measures of investor attention to COVID-19. The results show that the intensity of Twitter discussions about COVID-19 (and about the treatment program) correspond to market returns. This suggests a role for financial social networks in transmitting information related to crises, such as COVID-19, and the resolution of crises.

Suggested Citation

  • Al Guindy, Mohamed, 2022. "Fear and hope in financial social networks: Evidence from COVID-19," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PA).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:46:y:2022:i:pa:s1544612321003135
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2021.102271
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612321003135
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2021.102271?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. Pagano, Michael S. & Sedunov, John & Velthuis, Raisa, 2021. "How did retail investors respond to the COVID-19 pandemic? The effect of Robinhood brokerage customers on market quality," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    2. Zhi Da & Joseph Engelberg & Pengjie Gao, 2011. "In Search of Attention," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1461-1499, October.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:1259-1294 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. 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. Carlini, Federico & Farina, Vincenzo & Gufler, Ivan & Previtali, Daniele, 2024. "Do stress and overstatement in the news affect the stock market? Evidence from COVID-19 news in The Wall Street Journal," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    2. Ling Jin & Jun Hyeok Choi & Saerona Kim & Kwanghee Cho, 2022. "Slack Resources, Corporate Performance, and COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-21, November.
    3. Ben Chamberlain & Zhangxin (Frank) Liu & Lee A. Smales, 2023. "Short interest and the stock market relation with news sentiment from traditional and social media sources," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(2), pages 321-334, June.
    4. Liu, Yandong & Shi, Yu & Wang, Yang & Tian, Zhu, 2024. "Social networks and household consumption," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(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. Du, Yao & Linh, Tran Thi Thuy & Lu, Chien-Lin & Nguyen, Hong Thoa, 2024. "Reaching the public with Twitter: The reputation value of CEOs," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    2. Rui Fan & Oleksandr Talavera & Vu Tran, 2018. "Does connection with @realDonaldTrump affect stock prices?," Working Papers 2018-07, Swansea University, School of Management.
    3. Goodell, John W. & Kumar, Satish & Li, Xiao & Pattnaik, Debidutta & Sharma, Anuj, 2022. "Foundations and research clusters in investor attention: Evidence from bibliometric and topic modelling analysis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 511-529.
    4. Reyes, Tomas, 2018. "Limited attention and M&A announcements," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 201-222.
    5. Rui Fan & Oleksandr Talavera & Vu Tran, 2020. "Social media bots and stock markets," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 26(3), pages 753-777, June.
    6. Gang Chu & Xiao Li & Dehua Shen & Yongjie Zhang, 2021. "Stock Crashes and Jumps Reactions to Information Demand and Supply: An Intraday Analysis," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 28(3), pages 397-427, September.
    7. Marmora, Paul, 2021. "Individual investor ownership and the news coverage premium," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 494-507.
    8. Umar, Tarik, 2022. "Complexity aversion when SeekingAlpha," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2).
    9. André Betzer & Jan Philipp Harries, 2022. "How online discussion board activity affects stock trading: the case of GameStop," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 36(4), pages 443-472, December.
    10. 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.
    11. Geng, Yuedan & Ye, Qiang & Jin, Yu & Shi, Wen, 2022. "Crowd wisdom and internet searches: What happens when investors search for stocks?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    12. Ding, Rong & Hou, Wenxuan & Liu, Yue (Lucy) & Zhang, John Ziyang, 2018. "Media censorship and stock price: Evidence from the foreign share discount in China," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 112-133.
    13. Mohamed Al Guindy & James P. Naughton & Ryan Riordan, 2024. "The evolution of corporate twitter usage," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3-4), pages 819-845, March.
    14. 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.
    15. Cookson, J. Anthony & Lu, Runjing & Mullins, William & Niessner, Marina, 2024. "The social signal," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    16. Wu, Ming-Hung & Tsai, Wei-Che & Lu, Chia-Chi & Zhang, Hang, 2022. "Google searches around analyst recommendation revision announcements: Evidence from the Taiwan stock market," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 75-97.
    17. Benjamin Clapham & Michael Siering & Peter Gomber, 2021. "Popular News Are Relevant News! How Investor Attention Affects Algorithmic Decision-Making and Decision Support in Financial Markets," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 477-494, April.
    18. Michael S. Drake & Jared Jennings & Darren T. Roulstone & Jacob R. Thornock, 2017. "The Comovement of Investor Attention," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(9), pages 2847-2867, September.
    19. 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.
    20. Vamossy, Domonkos F., 2021. "Investor emotions and earnings announcements," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Networks; Social media; Big Data; COVID-19;
    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

    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:finlet:v:46:y:2022:i:pa:s1544612321003135. 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/frl .

    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.