IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-01346763.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Big Brother Watching Us? Google, Investor Sentiment and the Stock Market

Author

Listed:
  • Francisca Beer

    (CSUSB - California State University [San Bernardino])

  • Fabrice Hervé

    (LEG - Laboratoire d'Economie et de Gestion - UB - Université de Bourgogne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Mohamed Zouaoui

    (LEG - Laboratoire d'Economie et de Gestion - UB - Université de Bourgogne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel measure of French investor sentiment based on the volume of internet search reported by Google Trends. We find that our sentiment indicator correlates well with alternative sentiment measures often used in the literature. Furthermore, we find that investor sentiment influences the behavior of mutual fund investors. The results also reveal evidence about short-run predictability in return. An increase in our sentiment index leads to short-term return reversal. The reversal pattern is more pronounced for smaller firms than larger firms, consistent with the predictions of noise trader's models.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisca Beer & Fabrice Hervé & Mohamed Zouaoui, 2013. "Is Big Brother Watching Us? Google, Investor Sentiment and the Stock Market," Post-Print hal-01346763, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01346763
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Hirshleifer & Tyler Shumway, 2003. "Good Day Sunshine: Stock Returns and the Weather," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 1009-1032, June.
    2. Dickey, David A & Fuller, Wayne A, 1981. "Likelihood Ratio Statistics for Autoregressive Time Series with a Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 1057-1072, June.
    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. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Ben-Rephael, Azi & Kandel, Shmuel & Wohl, Avi, 2012. "Measuring investor sentiment with mutual fund flows," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 363-382.
    7. Smith, Geoffrey Peter, 2012. "Google Internet search activity and volatility prediction in the market for foreign currency," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 103-110.
    8. Shan, Liwei & Gong, Stephen X., 2012. "Investor sentiment and stock returns: Wenchuan Earthquake," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 36-47.
    9. McLaren, Nick & Shanbhogue, Rachana, 2011. "Using internet search data as economic indicators," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 51(2), pages 134-140.
    10. Brown, Gregory W. & Cliff, Michael T., 2004. "Investor sentiment and the near-term stock market," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 1-27, January.
    11. 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.
    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. van der Wielen, Wouter & Barrios, Salvador, 2021. "Economic sentiment during the COVID pandemic: Evidence from search behaviour in the EU," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    2. Khan, Muhammad Asif & Hernandez, Jose Arreola & Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain, 2020. "Time and frequency relationship between household investors’ sentiment index and US industry stock returns," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    3. Szczygielski, Jan Jakub & Charteris, Ailie & Bwanya, Princess Rutendo & Brzeszczyński, Janusz, 2024. "Google search trends and stock markets: Sentiment, attention or uncertainty?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    4. Ana Brochado, 2016. "Retail Investor Sentiment: Can We Google It?," EcoMod2016 9341, EcoMod.
    5. Stephen L. France & Yuying Shi, 2017. "Aggregating Google Trends: Multivariate Testing and Analysis," Papers 1712.03152, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2018.
    6. France, Stephen L. & Shi, Yuying & Kazandjian, Brett, 2021. "Web Trends: A valuable tool for business research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 666-679.
    7. Frugier, Alain, 2016. "Returns, volatility and investor sentiment: Evidence from European stock markets," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 45-55.

    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. González-Fernández, Marcos & González-Velasco, Carmen, 2020. "A sentiment index to measure sovereign risk using Google data," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 406-418.
    2. Wenjie Ding & Khelifa Mazouz & Qingwei Wang, 2019. "Investor sentiment and the cross-section of stock returns: new theory and evidence," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 493-525, August.
    3. Wang, Wenzhao & Duxbury, Darren, 2021. "Institutional investor sentiment and the mean-variance relationship: Global evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 415-441.
    4. Li, Xiao & Shen, Dehua & Xue, Mei & Zhang, Wei, 2017. "Daily happiness and stock returns: The case of Chinese company listed in the United States," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 496-501.
    5. Siganos, Antonios & Vagenas-Nanos, Evangelos & Verwijmeren, Patrick, 2014. "Facebook's daily sentiment and international stock markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PB), pages 730-743.
    6. Lutz, Chandler, 2015. "The impact of conventional and unconventional monetary policy on investor sentiment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 89-105.
    7. Aissia, Dorsaf Ben, 2016. "Home and foreign investor sentiment and the stock returns," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 71-77.
    8. Martyna Marczak & Thomas Beissinger, 2016. "Bidirectional relationship between investor sentiment and excess returns: new evidence from the wavelet perspective," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(18), pages 1305-1311, December.
    9. Xiong, Xiong & Meng, Yongqiang & Li, Xiao & Shen, Dehua, 2020. "Can overnight return really serve as a proxy for firm-specific investor sentiment? Cross-country evidence," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    10. Alturki, Sultan & Olson, Eric, 2022. "Oil sentiment and the U.S. inflation premium," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    11. Wu, Qinqin & Hao, Ying & Lu, Jing, 2017. "Investor sentiment, idiosyncratic risk, and mispricing of American Depository Receipt," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 1-14.
    12. Thomas Dimpfl & Vladislav Kleiman, 2019. "Investor Pessimism and the German Stock Market: Exploring Google Search Queries," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 20(1), pages 1-28, February.
    13. Seo, Sung Won & Kim, Jun Sik, 2015. "The information content of option-implied information for volatility forecasting with investor sentiment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 106-120.
    14. Kim, Jun Sik & Ryu, Doojin & Seo, Sung Won, 2014. "Investor sentiment and return predictability of disagreement," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 166-178.
    15. Wu, Qinqin & Hao, Ying & Lu, Jing, 2018. "Air pollution, stock returns, and trading activities in China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 342-365.
    16. 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).
    17. Cai, Wenwu & Lu, Jing, 2019. "Investors’ financial attention frequency and trading activity," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    18. Bouteska, Ahmed & Kabir Hassan, M. & Gider, Zeynullah & Bataineh, Hassan, 2024. "The role of investor sentiment and market belief in forecasting V-shaped disposition effect: Evidence from a Bayesian learning process with DSSW model," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    19. Kostopoulos, Dimitrios & Meyer, Steffen, 2018. "Disentangling investor sentiment: Mood and household attitudes towards the economy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 28-78.
    20. Edmans, Alex & Fernandez-Perez, Adrian & Garel, Alexandre & Indriawan, Ivan, 2022. "Music sentiment and stock returns around the world," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 234-254.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Google Trends; Investor sentiment; Stock returns;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G0 - Financial Economics - - General
    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets

    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:hal:journl:hal-01346763. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.