Impact of Reddit Retail Investors

In this thesis we examine the impact the amount of comments on the social media platform Reddit has on the development of stocks from Microvision Inc., Clover Health Investments Corp. and Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. Thereby we focus on the subreddit wallstreetbets and model the impact of comments whi...

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Main Author: HERMANN, JONA GABRIEL
Format: Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2022
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/69551/
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author HERMANN, JONA GABRIEL
author_facet HERMANN, JONA GABRIEL
author_sort HERMANN, JONA GABRIEL
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description In this thesis we examine the impact the amount of comments on the social media platform Reddit has on the development of stocks from Microvision Inc., Clover Health Investments Corp. and Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. Thereby we focus on the subreddit wallstreetbets and model the impact of comments which include the respective stock symbol have on the stock price volatility. To account for retail investor interest besides Reddit and general market trends we include further variables in our model. We then test whether a specific event has triggered the rise in comments and examine how the rise in comments influenced further indicators such as short interest and stock price. Lastly, we analyse the findings in the context of literature findings and theoretical assumptions. We identify a relation between the amount of Reddit comments and the stock price volatility. Furthermore, we show that Reddit retail investors have an impact on other factors such as stock price and short interest. Although those findings are more mixed and not as straightforward as the findings regarding the stock price volatility. We find that our findings are consistent with prior works about retail investor behaviour and herding behaviour. Our findings contribute to the literature about retail investors behaviour and their increasing impact on the stock market. Therefore our research offers interesting insights for policy makers, market regulators and other market participants.
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spelling nottingham-695512023-06-20T15:30:00Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/69551/ Impact of Reddit Retail Investors HERMANN, JONA GABRIEL In this thesis we examine the impact the amount of comments on the social media platform Reddit has on the development of stocks from Microvision Inc., Clover Health Investments Corp. and Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. Thereby we focus on the subreddit wallstreetbets and model the impact of comments which include the respective stock symbol have on the stock price volatility. To account for retail investor interest besides Reddit and general market trends we include further variables in our model. We then test whether a specific event has triggered the rise in comments and examine how the rise in comments influenced further indicators such as short interest and stock price. Lastly, we analyse the findings in the context of literature findings and theoretical assumptions. We identify a relation between the amount of Reddit comments and the stock price volatility. Furthermore, we show that Reddit retail investors have an impact on other factors such as stock price and short interest. Although those findings are more mixed and not as straightforward as the findings regarding the stock price volatility. We find that our findings are consistent with prior works about retail investor behaviour and herding behaviour. Our findings contribute to the literature about retail investors behaviour and their increasing impact on the stock market. Therefore our research offers interesting insights for policy makers, market regulators and other market participants. 2022-07-11 Dissertation (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/69551/1/Master%20Thesis_Jona%20Hermann.pdf HERMANN, JONA GABRIEL (2022) Impact of Reddit Retail Investors. [Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)]
spellingShingle HERMANN, JONA GABRIEL
Impact of Reddit Retail Investors
title Impact of Reddit Retail Investors
title_full Impact of Reddit Retail Investors
title_fullStr Impact of Reddit Retail Investors
title_full_unstemmed Impact of Reddit Retail Investors
title_short Impact of Reddit Retail Investors
title_sort impact of reddit retail investors
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/69551/