Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

2019

College/Unit

Chambers College of Business and Economics

Document Number

19-03

Department/Program/Center

Economics

Abstract

The behavioral finance literature has found that investor sentiment has predictive ability for equity returns. This differs from standard finance theory, which provides no role for investor sentiment. We examine the relationship between investor sentiment and stock returns by employing textual analysis on social media posts. We find that our investor sentiment measure has a positive and significant effect on abnormal stock returns. These findings are consistent across a number of different models and specifications, providing further evidence against non-behavioral theories.

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