Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
APPLIED ECONOMICS, 2025 (SSCI)
This study examines the effects of social media and internet forum posts on the market for stocks traded on Borsa Istanbul between 2018 and 2022, identified as manipulated by the Capital Markets Board (CMB) of T & uuml;rkiye. The analysis focuses on Twitter and Investing.com posts related to these stocks, utilizing a newly created Turkish finance sentiment dictionary to convert sentiment into numerical data. In addition to traditional sentiment categories of positive, neutral, and negative, a 'suspicious' category was defined to capture the impact of speculative and manipulative posts. The results of the Panel Quantile Regression Method reveal that social media and internet forum activity affects market conditions differently (bear, normal, and bull markets) and varies across different trading volume levels. Notably, the influence of positive and suspicious content intensifies during bull markets and periods of high trading volume. The findings suggest that in bull markets, social media activity boosts investor optimism and confidence, fostering herd behaviour and speculative actions. Conversely, during periods of low returns and trading volume, the impact of social media posts is more subdued, with investors generally avoiding losses. Overall, the results indicate that social media content significantly impacts market dynamics and can substantially influence investor decisions.