Title: Do social media sentiments affect investment decisions? A moderated mediation analysis of the relationship between social media sentiments, trust, and investment decisions

Authors: Deepshi Garg; Prakash Tiwari; Vijay Kumar Jain

Addresses: Faculty of Management Studies, DIT University, Uttarakhand, India ' Faculty of Management Studies, DIT University, Uttarakhand, India ' Faculty of Management Studies, DIT University, Uttarakhand, India

Abstract: The study explores the effect of social media sentiments on the social media attitude of investors. The objective is to determine whether an investor's trust in social media sentiments influences social media attitudes while making investment decisions. A standardised questionnaire was made to obtain data from Indian retail investors. The data was evaluated and analysed using smart PLS to investigate the association concerning constructs like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Here, investor's trust mediates between social media sentiments and social media attitude, while investment choice is a moderator between social media sentiments and trust. The significant result of this study shows how trust factors affect a person's eagerness to take financial risks and participate in risky securities. Trust also affects investment diversification and individual investor perception. The study offers valuable awareness for individual investors, financial experts, opinion formers, educationists, and other shareholders.

Keywords: social media sentiments; SMSs; social media attitude; SMA; stock market; investor behaviour; investment choice; trust.

DOI: 10.1504/GBER.2025.143074

Global Business and Economics Review, 2025 Vol.32 No.1, pp.67 - 87

Received: 11 Feb 2023
Accepted: 19 Jun 2023
Published online: 03 Dec 2024 *

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