| Author: | Lui, Jonathan |
| Title: | Can retail investors armed with social media cause big waves? The case of meme stocks during COVID-19 |
| Advisors: | Jiang, Li (AF) Cheng, Zhuo (AF) |
| Degree: | DFinTech |
| Year: | 2024 |
| Subject: | Social media -- Economic aspects Stocks -- Prices COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-2023 -- Economic aspects Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Faculty of Business |
| Pages: | 173 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | The study investigates the way in which individual investors using social media affect turnover dynamics of meme stocks during the COVID-19 outbreak before and after the GameStop event. These tendencies are further supported by well-researched investor psychology predispositions, such as style investing and positive feedback creating biases and look at how risk-taking affects the comovement of meme stocks. The findings indicated that during the COVID during which there was a notable rise in the trading turnover of meme stocks in part due to social media attention. Regression analysis showed that positive feedback was evident during the COVID period and the comovement of trading turnover decreased as risk increased. This research allows us to understand more about meme stock behaviour as a style of stock of its own grouping in conjunction with Reddit social media user tendencies. Social media is an integral part of our everyday lives and the newer generation have grown up using these platforms. Retail investors armed with social media are causing big waves, redefining what was once fringe to become mainstream trading, creating macro shifts in power and accessibility. Regulators can determine whether further regulation is required to help protect investors and professional investors can see how they can incorporate meme stocks into their investment portfolios. This is how the rest of the thesis is organised. The background and context of the research topic are introduced in Section 1. The research that has already been done in this field and the need for more study are discussed in Section 2. The theoretical framework and hypothesis are explained in Section 3. The research methodology and data are covered in Section 4. The findings are outlined in Section 5. Section 6 concludes with a discussion and conclusion. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7810.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 926.99 kB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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