Kaivanto, Kim and Zhang, Peng (2019) Popular Music, Sentiment, and Noise Trading. Working Paper. Lancaster University, Department of Economics, Lancaster.
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Abstract
We construct a sentiment indicator as the first principal component of thirteen emotion metrics derived from the lyrics and composition of music-chart singles. This indicator performs well, dominating the Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment and bettering the Baker-Wurgler index in long-horizon regression tests as well as in out-of-sample forecasting tests. The music-sentiment indicator captures both signal and noise. The part associated with fundamentals predicts more distant market returns positively. The second part is orthogonal to fundamentals, and predicts one-month-ahead market returns negatively. This is evidence of noise trading explained by the emotive content of popular music.