One-way ticket to the moon? An NLP-based insight on the phenomenon of small-scale neo-broker trading

Abstract

We present an Natural Language Processing based analysis on the phenomenon of “Meme Stocks”, which has emerged as a result of the proliferation of neo-brokers like Robinhood and the massive increase in the number of small-scale stock investors. Such investors often use specific Social Media channels to share short-term investment decisions and strategies, resulting in partial collusion and planning of investment decisions. The impact of online communities on the stock prices of affected companies has been considerable in the short term. This paper has two objectives. Firstly, we chronologically model the discourse on the most prominent platforms. Secondly, we examine the potential for using collaboratively made investment decisions as a means to assist in the selection of potential investments.. To understand the investment decision-making processes of small-scale investors, we analyze data from Social Media platforms like Reddit, Stocktwits and Seeking Alpha. Our methodology combines Sentiment Analysis and Topic Modelling. Sentiment Analysis is conducted using VADER and a fine-tuned BERT model. For Topic Modelling, we utilize LDA, NMF and the state-of-the-art BERTopic. We identify the topics and shapes of discussions over time and evaluate the potential for leveraging information of the decision-making process of investors for trading choices. We utilize Random Forest and Neural Network Models to show that latent information in discussions can be exploited for trend prediction of stocks affected by Social Network driven herd behavior. Our findings provide valuable insights into content and sentiment of discussions and are a vehicle to improve efficient trading decisions for stocks affected from short-term herd behavior.