IMPACT OF INTERNET FORUM TRENDS AND RETAIL INVESTORS ONLINE DISCUSSION ON STOCK PRICE: ANALYZING WALLSTREETBETS USERS’ ACTIVITIES IN THE 1ST & 2ND QUARTER OF 2021

Abstract

A series of short squeeze activities during the last six months has drawn the public's attention to an online forum called WallStreetBets. As the community which starts the whole short squeeze series, the posts and discussions on WallStreetBets are highly related with the stocks they choose as targets to short squeeze. The aim for us is to clarify the influence of WallStreetBets discussions on stock prices. In this paper, the Granger Causality tests conducted on 15 stocks prove that for a certain stock, either a one-directional relationship or a bi-directional relationship exists between its stock price and its discussion frequency on WallStreetBets. To further examine the relationship, we use 2SLS and OLS regressions to acquire numerical and specific results for the elasticity between 15 stocks’ prices and discussion intensity on WallStreetBets respectively.