My PLN will be about investing in the stock market, and how companies use social media to influence investors. This topic is important to me because I am an active day trader and investor, however, I haven’t done too much solid investing because I am not entirely sure what to invest in and I haven’t learned how people pick what to invest in. During my research I hope to learn about how companies that are in the stock market influence investors to buy shares of their company for the long term, I want to understand what investors look for when determining what to invest in, and if those investments are necessarily smart, or simply influenced by the companies social media, meaning they could be bad investments! I am mostly interested in what companies investors take the most notice in, and how those companies go about getting investors interested in their products in the first place, a lot of companies don’t get the notoriety they need, I want to understand what the other companies do differently that made them get the notoriety they currently have. I am also interested to find how much social media influences human behavior in regards to the stock market. From what I know investors overreact to the news a lot and it is represented in the stock market on those days, I am curious as to why.
Hindenburg Research Source 1
Hindenburg research is the first source I looked at in particular. Hindenburg research specializes in forensic financial research. I did research specifically on the company Nikola, Hindenburg bet on Nikola’s stock shares dropping heavily after they partnered with GM motors. Hindenburg called Nikola (a electric truck startup company) an intricate fraud and their owner, Trevor Milton, full of deceit and lies. Through my research with Hindenburg it is very apparent that Nikola used social media to influence investors, but in a way that not only deceived them, but costed them a lot of money! They used a prototype truck in a video that was meant to be running, later proved to be running off downhill momentum. Basically, I learned to be weary of companies that are doing better than expected, and to do in-depth research on who they are and what they are doing. Hindenburg
Tesla Source #2
I researched Tesla’s rise to stardom on Investopedia which is a website that provides financial education along with reviews, ratings, and comparisons of various financial products. This article helped me learn that a lot of Tesla’s rise to fame had not a whole lot to do with how they used social media, but how social media used them. Tesla doesn’t do a whole lot of marketing, but Elon Musk is a character and a fantastic face for the company with the attitude he carries. Not to mention everyone that owns a Tesla (I’ve noticed) hypes up the car company by posting them driving it, and all the fancy cool features it has.
Market Watch Source #3
Market watch is an organization that displays daily news on the stock market and what events are coming up such as Q1 earnings, not to mention they display watchlists and an investing category to their sight. As an investor I’ve learned a lot from this sight in terms of what companies I should be investing it for long term value. For example Amazon has a great running track with gaining support in the stock market. It has been a huge success for anybody who was previously holding Amazon stocks before COVID 19 hit raising about 63.3 percent. Market watch is a great way for investors to get a good understanding of stocks they wish to invest in.
Investors News Source #4
Investors provides a lot of stock market research for investors. It allows stock investors to review their own research to determine if the chosen stock is a good option for buying the stock long term, or if it is just good for a short run. This website has helped investors worldwide make money and make decisions to increase their portfolio balance. I personally use this website to prepare myself for upcoming weeks in the stock market. I have learned that this website can be used by all stock market traders alike, day traders, swing traders, and long term investors.
Wall Street Journal Source #5
I learned from The Wall Street Journal that I can use their website in order news about businesses and their recent to long term growth in the stock market. I already tend to use this source personally to reference their research to specific companies such as, Tesla, Amazon, and many more. The Wall Street Journal has helped me setup trades and make money in the stock market. They also post any news that doesn’t directly relate to the stock market, but may affect it heavily. Such as Biden’s pledge to move away from crude oil. This will affect the stock market heavily for the companies that deal with crude oil.
TD Ameritrade YouTube Channel Source #6
TD Ameritrade is a bank that has a trading platform called think or swim in which stock traders and investors can conduct their buying and selling of stocks. This particular bank also has a YouTube channel that offers videos to teach people how to invest and what it is all about. It also teaches people how to use their platform and how companies may influence their stock price and what to look for. I have learned that TD Ameritrade offers insightful information on how investing works and how companies influence investors into taking a stake, or position in their company.
CBNC News YouTube Channel Source #7
CNBC’s YouTube channel provides insightful news to stock market investors. It may not be as direct but it can be, however most investors are looking for reasons why companies may do well. By following what the news is displaying investors set themselves up with information regarding what may make a stock price go up or down. For reference, Zoom is increasingly getting higher and higher in price because of COVID 19, every time the news puts out a video about COVID 19 cases the price of Zoom in the stock market raises up, earning investors and day traders money. The news is one of the biggest media outlets for stock market news. Pretty much everybody watches the news and it creates either a positive or negative impact for companies based on the news and how people react.
CNN YouTube Channel Source #8
CNN’s YouTube channel is very similar to CNBC’s YouTube channel as it provides videos in order for investors and day traders alike to make important buying and selling decisions based on current news. News displayed on this YouTube channel can cause an increase in buyer or seller pressure. This means that a stock is being bought, or sold heavily. In these instances it is usually because of news that has been displayed indicating the chosen business is a good option to purchase or a bad option depending on what that business is currently doing to grow. Maybe it is doing bad in terms of business value and it makes people sell the companies stock in order to minimize loss.
Stock Market Live YouTube Channel Source #9
Stock Market Live is a YouTube channel that live streams their trades and the entire market from start to finish. This influences investors and traders as they watch Stock Market Live make trades and start to turn profits. This makes them trust the owner of the channel to make good calls, eventually these people will follow in the footsteps of these traders and investors. I’ve learned that a channel like this can influence the stock market by showing proof of how the owners of the channel have down. By providing trust they increase the power in which someone decides to buy or sell a stock.
BloomBerg QuickTake YouTube Channel Source #10
Bloomberg Quick Take’s provides investors and day traders with news on specific businesses and what they are doing. For example, Bloomberg lets investors know which companies are in a particular product “race” for the best electric truck. Recently they put out a video and incorporated many electric truck companies and what they are doing to be better than their competitors. This is extremely useful for investors because it gives them an idea of what will come for the future, and who has a head start in the “race” and ultimately who could be more valuable in the future.
Wall Street Journal Article Source #11
From this article I have learned that new innovations are becoming the big thing in todays stock market. Investors are looking towards something that will enhance the future of all people. These electric car startups have been huge in todays market because of their change to the environment, and the potential for a new market. I have also learned that if you’re an investor, you must be vigilant in what the future holds, new inventions and new things are being created everyday, and if one thing is for certain, we can’t turn away from the future of technology. With new inventions that help the environment and keep our earth cleaner will be the new biggest things topics.
Nasdaq Articles Source #12
In this article I found that the financial market is impacted heavily by emotions created by social media. Whether it be the news or from important people, investors tend to react heavily to what is said, and how they feel about it. I read that if a certain emotion is felt about the things being said or read then it creates the need to buy or sell or a certain stock. Now a lot of smart day traders consider this to be the perfect time to buy and sell for a quick profit. When the market over reacts and sells off a lot of shares in a certain company then a day trader would buy those shares once the price has dropped a considerable amount, and then once it picks up pace and the price goes back up then they sell to gain a profit.
Convince and Convert Source #13
I found this article particularly interesting because it explains what makes investors use social media. Investors seem to really like Twitter as their source of news considering they can find news broadcasted on their before it is published by any actual news company. This is critical to investors because this can be make or break, by getting this information before others they can predict a possible move a stock might make based on the news presented, indicating the investor should exit their position and take the money while they can or strengthen their position and buy more shares because the price is about to go up.
GreenWich Article Source #14
In this article I found that 48% of investors see social media information and it prompts them to do additional research on the topic. 37% shared that they connected the information to decision makers at their companies. 34% said social media information influenced them to work with a particular person or company. 33% stated information from social media prompted them to have a discussion with their investment consultant. This data was extremely fascinating to learn about, and the fact that these kinds of numbers can be found from social media posts! I am surprised to say investors even consider a quick social media post as a good indicator to make a decision!
Investopedia Article Source #15
This article provided me with information about how or if investors should invest in social media startup companies. This provided me with a sense of how investors are looking at social media and how maybe they can even get a piece on the changes that social media makes. With these startup companies comes risk, however with the ever changing ways of social media these risks can be taken with confidence. When you look at the numbers of how big Snapchat, Instagram, or Twitter have gotten, and are still growing, it is hard to say that social media isn’t changing and getting even bigger and better, both for the user and also big business.
Simple Blog Source #16
This blog taught me a lot about how human behavior on social media can further predict the stock market. I have learned from previous sources that Twitter is a big news outlet, and from this article I have learned that any positive or negative information with heavy sentiment may carry a rippling effect and produce the same results in the stock value of the specified business/company. Not to mention it is said that Twitter data can be as accurate as 87.6% accurate at predicting what will occur in the stock market.
Hindenburg Research Twitter Source #17
Hindenburg Research has a Twitter and I feel it is very smart to follow them on their account if you are an investor. They post about their strong opinions in companies with evidence to why they feel this way, along with reports and statements from the specific company at hand. They have predicted two companies that have been delisted in the stock market this year. One of them having their assets in China frozen causing them to lose 74 million dollars, which investors found out through Hindenburg Research, however investors weren’t supposed to find out. Hindenburg exposes the truth behind companies and allegations against them.
BloomBerg Twitter Source #18
Bloomberg’s twitter happens to be very big in the news for big business. They relay news to the public about what is happening currently or in the future for big companies. This is good for investors to keep an eye on as they can make judgement on news tweets posted by Bloomberg and decide if this is enough to make a decision to take a position in a particular company or leave it be. Bloomberg uses social media to help investors make the decision to buy into a company as well as helping companies gain awareness through their huge platform.
Benzinga Twitter Source #19
Benzinga’s twitter provides investors with real-time coverage of financial news, analyst upgrades and downgrades in regards to stock price, and technical events like price breakouts (unusual jump in price) or unusual volume (shares are being sold and bought in overall large amounts). This twitter account can be very important to investors as it provides them with easy access to daily financial news that they can use to predict stock what may happen in the stock market, essentially giving investors a head start in their plans to buy a certain share in a company or to sell based on their predictions.
WSJ Twitter Feed Source #20
I really think Wall Street Journal’s Twitter is highly affective at providing investors with useful information in regards to analysis on global markets, and highlighting important news outlets, as well as analysis of stock movement. Wall Street provides weekly updates on stock movement as well as daily news information that can be used by an investor in order to make critical decisions about companies and their rivals and who maybe a better decision to invest in. I really enjoy the Wall Street Journal as most of their content is extremely straight forward and easy on the eyes, very simple to understand. I personally have made trades based on the information that they post!
PLN Conclusion
Overall, through all the studying and sources I’ve looked through. I’ve learned that social media is a huge part of the stock market! I am very surprised to say that it is a lot bigger than I thought, I wasn’t exactly sure just how much certain news outlets affected stock prices. This project has taught me a lot about how investors use social media, such as watching social media pages for specific pieces of news can make people emotionally want to buy or sell the particular company at mention. It is intriguing to know that emotions expressed through social media carries on into a financial market, furthermore these simple statements and bits of information can make people and companies alike lose or gain thousands upon thousands of dollars. I personally will be using a lot of the sources I have thrown into this project on a day to day basis, such as the twitter profiles, these sources were a great way to get the news you need as quick as possible, it doesn’t get published or anything, just a small snippet summary of what it is all about! I also found that companies like Tesla don’t have to commit to marketing as much, considering the people do the marketing for him! I was surprised to find that Tesla doesn’t produce its own sort of advertising but lets people create the hype around the company. People talk about Tesla all the time on social media pages and this talk transfers to the stock market and based on what was talked about will increase or decrease the value of the stock.
NRG Official 