- The AFS Conference will feature speakers, symposia, and several special sessions. Among them, we will introduce a new panel session for PhD students, highlighting how to best navigate the job market.
- With the generous support of our sponsors, the Academy has awarded several best paper awards during past meetings and we anticipate continuing Best Paper awards in 2021.
- We will continue with our Emerging Scholar Award to a current graduate student for promising research work on a paper or poster presented at the conference.
The Era of Retail Investors: Evidence from Reddit and Robinhood
Keywords
Retail investors; Reddit; Robinhood
Short Description
The recent GameStop Stock Mania brought the wallstreetbets subreddit into spotlight. We measured retail investor attention through the intensity of certain stock tickers are mentioned in the wallstreetbets subreddit. We found that retail investor attention is highly associated with large positive movements in the previous time periods, especially the prior one or two days.However, reddit attention is also related to significant and positive returns for the next one- and two-days returns. Hypothetical portfolios weighted using investor attention and rebalanced on a monthly, weekly, and daily basis are all significantly outperforming the market benchmark from 2018. This outperformance is extreme since May 2020.
Lead & Corresponding Author
Yuanshan Cheng, Ph.D., Winthrop University
Job Title
Assistant Professor