Public sentiment, stock and energy prices during the Russia-Ukraine war: global evidence

Abstract

This study uses public emotions shown through social media to identify public sentiment toward the current Russia-Ukraine war. Utilizing the development of natural language processing algorithms, this study tests the correlation between the public psychological factor and the fluctuation in financial markets and energy prices during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. This study emphasizes the public’s initial response to this event (from 1/2022 to 5/2022). It aims to evaluate the public sentiment on sudden shock instead of taking the incident comprehensively. The study results ascertain the public sentiment index contained from social media as a market indicator. During shock events such as the Russia-Ukraine war, public sentiment intensifies energy and financial asset price fluctuation, indicating that public psychology tends to be influenced by negative news and causes them to act accordingly, resulting in a sell-off in financial and energy markets.