Examining the influence of stock market variables on microblogging sentiment

This research investigates different combinations of causal conditions that may relate to microblogging sentiment. The study considers financial variables, such as VIX, Tobin's Q, capitalization, or P/E ratio, and variables related to social media activity, such as number of twits, number of followers, or the experience of the users. Using a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, this research analyzes the sentiment of stock-related microblogging messages of S&P 500 Index posted between October 2009 and October 2014. The model where the message sentiment increases finds three causal recipes and all of them contain user experience and number of followers: (1) the configuration within user experience, number of followers, and Tobin's Q; (2) the configuration within user experience, number of followers, and lower P/E ratio, lower capitalization, and lower Tobin's Q; (3) and the configuration within user experience, number of followers, P/E ratio, and Tobin's Q. The study discusses the results.