Can Facebook Predict Stock Market Activity?
58 Pages Posted: 20 Mar 2012 Last revised: 24 Nov 2016
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Can Facebook Predict Stock Market Activity?
Date Written: October 21, 2013
Abstract
Using a novel and direct measure of investor sentiment, I find that Facebook's Gross National Happiness (GNH) has the ability to predict changes in both daily returns and trading volume in the US stock market. For instance, an increase of one standard deviation in GNH is associated with an increase of 11.23 basis points in market returns over the next day. Consistent with noise trader models, the influence of GNH on market returns is temporary and is reversed during the following trading weeks. I also verify the empirical validity of GNH by performing several tests in different natural settings.
Keywords: Investor sentiment, social media, behavioral nance, Facebook, social networks
JEL Classification: D81, G11, G12
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation