The Impact of Social Sentiment on Firm Performance Similarity

This study aims to investigate the impact of social sentiment on firm performance similarity in financial markets. We analyze social sentiment towards a firms’ business using opinion mining techniques, and develop a social relation revealing firms’ business similarity based on the output. We found that when social trend and social sentiment about a firm vary on social media, people are likely to change their view of the firm. We found social trend to be most influential followed by negative sentiment. We use stock trade volume as an indicator of firms’ performance in two different channels (traditional and mobile), and develop social relations showing firms’ business similarity based on the output. Our findings suggest that social relations inferred from social sentiment are related to firm performance similarity. More interestingly, the relationship is stronger in the mobile channel, but it is even negative in the traditional channel.