Google Search and Stock Market Performance: Evidence from Malaysia

Abstract

Nowadays, the internet changes the way for information searching and processing. Along with that, Google search had become the most popular search engine on the web since it allows users access to the information at a minimal cost. This study intends to investigate the relationship between Google search volume and the Malaysian stock market performance in the aspects of returns, volatility, and trading volume. The sample of this study consisted of 29 listed companies from the Malaysian stock market. The sample period of this study covered the period from 2016 to 2018. The data related to the stock market were downloaded from Investing.com, whereas the data related to Google search were downloaded from the database of Google Trend. The results indicated that the Google search volume index (GSVI) of the previous week tends to have significant positive impacts on the stock price changes. Thus, a higher search volume of the specific company name tends to increase the stock price of the particular company in the following week. Besides that, this study also revealed that the stock market performance tends to be affected by stock market performance in the previous week. Lastly, this study suggested that signals of GSVI need to be included in the investment strategies.