Title: Social media, internet sentiment tracking and stock market volatility

Authors: Kuang-Husn Shih; Fu-Ju Yang; Yi-Hsien Wang; Yu-Ting Mai

Addresses: Graduate School of Financial Management, CTBC Business School, No. 600, Sec. 3, Taijiang Blvd., Annan Dist., Tainan, Taiwan ' Department of Banking and Finance, Chinese Culture University, 55, Hwa-Kang Road, Yang-Ming-Shan, Taipei, Taiwan ' Department of Banking and Finance, Chinese Culture University, 55, Hwa-Kang Road, Yang-Ming-Shan, Taipei, Taiwan ' Department of Banking and Finance, Chinese Culture University, 55, Hwa-Kang Road, Yang-Ming-Shan, Taipei, Taiwan

Abstract: This study analyses the effect of the social media activities on the market reaction of Taiwan's listed financial holding companies, and further observes the difference in investment decisions made by investors based on the related variables of social media. Negative internet sentiment tracking are more sensitive to stock volatility than positive internet sentiment tracking. Particularly, negative internet sentiment tracking have negative effects on stock returns of financial holding companies. In other words, negative internet sentiment tracking may cause financial holding companies' stock market returns to decline. Private financial holding companies have uncertain factors that enable them to be easily affected by comments on the internet. Because pan-government share financial holding companies have strong financial support probably due to the government's stake, investors are less concerned with comments on the mobile internet, making them more stable than private financial holding companies. The mobile internet is highly developed and is affecting the investment behaviour of market investors through the rapid spread of mobile social media. Therefore, the market trend in the digital economy will be affected by the herd effect formed by the influence of different mobile internet sentiment tracking.

Keywords: mobile internet sentiment tracking; emotions; mobile social media; stock returns; stock volatility.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2022.122637

International Journal of Mobile Communications, 2022 Vol.20 No.3, pp.367 - 383

Accepted: 19 Sep 2020
Published online: 04 May 2022 *

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