Internet sentiment exacerbates intraday overtrading, evidence from A-Share market

Abstract: Market fluctuations caused by overtrading are important components of systemic market risk. This study examines the effect of investor sentiment on intraday overtrading activities in the Chinese A-share market. Employing high-frequency sentiment indices inferred from social media posts on the Eastmoney forum Guba, the research focuses on constituents of the CSI 300 and CSI 500 indices over a period from 01/01/2018, to 12/30/2022. The empirical analysis indicates that investor sentiment exerts a significantly positive impact on intraday overtrading, with the influence being more pronounced among institutional investors relative to individual traders. Moreover, sentiment-driven overtrading is found to be more prevalent during bull markets as opposed to bear markets. Additionally, the effect of sentiment on overtrading is observed to be more pronounced among individual investors in large-cap stocks compared to small- and mid-cap stocks.