Under his thumb the effect of president Donald Trump’s Twitter messages on the US stock market

Abstract

Does president Trump’s use of Twitter affect financial markets? The president frequently mentions companies in his tweets and, as such, tries to gain leverage over their behavior. We analyze the effect of president Trump’s Twitter messages that specifically mention a company name on its stock market returns. We find that tweets from the president which reveal strong negative sentiment are followed by reduced market value of the company mentioned, whereas supportive tweets do not render a significant effect. Our methodology does not allow us to conclude about the exact mechanism behind these findings and can only be used to investigate short-term effects.