<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Online chatter can strongly affect companies by boosting or slowing down sales of commented products, and user generated content even affects stock prices. An analysis of almost 350,000 consumer reviews and product ratings for 15 brands on popular websites showed some interesting effects: Having a higher volume of user comments, regardless of their assessment, was a strong indication of an increase in stock prices. The researchers also found negative reviews had a stronger impact than positive reviews. According to the results, negative chatter could erode about $1.4 million from the average market capitalization over the short term and $3.3 million over the 15 days after it appeared. To better estimate the dollar value of the findings, the researchers calculated possible profits for an initial investment of $100 million. They either sold or bought stock on a daily basis depending on the prevailing valence of the chatter from the previous day. The overall gains using this strategy yielded an average annual profit of $7.9 million over the four years in the sample. With this result, the researchers beat the Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index by 8 % by buying stock on positive chatter and short-selling it after negative chatter.</p></abstract>

Online chatter can strongly affect companies by boosting or slowing down sales of commented products, and user generated content even affects stock prices. An analysis of almost 350,000 consumer reviews and product ratings for 15 brands on popular websites showed some interesting effects: Having a higher volume of user comments, regardless of their assessment, was a strong indication of an increase in stock prices. The researchers also found negative reviews had a stronger impact than positive reviews. According to the results, negative chatter could erode about $1.4 million from the average market capitalization over the short term and $3.3 million over the 15 days after it appeared. To better estimate the dollar value of the findings, the researchers calculated possible profits for an initial investment of $100 million. They either sold or bought stock on a daily basis depending on the prevailing valence of the chatter from the previous day. The overall gains using this strategy yielded an average annual profit of $7.9 million over the four years in the sample. With this result, the researchers beat the Standard & Poor’s 500 index by 8 % by buying stock on positive chatter and short-selling it after negative chatter.

User-Generated Content and Stock Performance: Does Online Chatter Matter?

Neely Chair of American Enterprise, Director of the Center for Global Innovation, and Professor of Marketing, Management and Organization at the USC Marshall School of Business, www.gtellis.net

Assistant Professor, C.T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston

NIM Marketing Intelligence Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"User-Generated Content and Stock Performance: Does Online Chatter Matter?"}

Online chatter can strongly affect companies by boosting or slowing down sales of commented products, and user generated content even affects stock prices. An...

User-Generated Content and Stock Performance: Does Online Chatter Matter?

Publié en ligne: 16 juil. 2014

Pages: 13 - 17

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/gfkmir-2014-0012

Mots clés
User-Generated Content, Online Word of Mouth, Stock Returns, Online Chatter

© 2014

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

User-Generated Content and Stock Performance: Does Online Chatter Matter?

Publié en ligne: 16 juil. 2014

Pages: 13 - 17

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/gfkmir-2014-0012

Mots clésUser-Generated Content, Online Word of Mouth, Stock Returns, Online Chatter

© 2014

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Mots clés
User-Generated Content, Online Word of Mouth, Stock Returns, Online Chatter