How did COVID-19 shape the Tweets sentiment impact upon stock prices of sport companies?

Abstract

This article aims to study the link between Twitter announces and stock prices of sports companies during the COVID crisis. In many instances, news, announces, social media content affect the evolution of stock prices. This paper assesses the relationship between the sentiment of social media and the evolution of stock prices. The study focuses on companies from the sports sector due to their popularity and the consistent number of followers on social networks, which provide a sound basis of analysis. Two aspects are explored: the Granger causality analysis of the tweets on stock prices and the event study related to the COVID crisis. The approach is implemented for a sample of 18 listed companies in the sports sector.

Keywords: COVID-19, Pandemic, Panic, Sport sector, Juventus, Lazio, Cristiano Ronaldo, NLP, Tweets, Sentiment analysis, Granger causality, Event study

JEL Classification: G01