Explained
Attention vs sentiment
Attention is how many people watch and post about a stock. Sentiment is which way they lean. A ticker can be loud and bearish, or quiet and bullish.
| Attention | Sentiment | |
|---|---|---|
| Question | How much are people looking? | Which way do they lean? |
| Typical readings | Watchers, message volume, posts naming a ticker | Bullish or bearish score, share of bullish posts |
| Direction | None: more or less | Bullish or bearish |
| On this site | The Hype Score, watchers, Reddit counts | StockTwits' sentiment score and label |
| Common mistake | Reading loud as good | Reading a crowd's mood as a view on the stock |
What is the difference between attention and sentiment?
Volume and direction. Attention counts: how many people follow a ticker, how much they post compared with normal, how many Reddit threads name it. Sentiment reads a lean: of the people posting, are more of them bullish or bearish.
The two move separately. Bad news can send attention up and sentiment down on the same day.
Why keep them apart?
Because mixing them makes a rating. A score that rose with both attention and bullish posts would reward a ticker for being popular and liked, which reads as a recommendation. Kept apart, each says only what it measures.
How this site shows both
The Hype Score is attention only: message volume, watcher growth, Reddit posts and watchers. StockTwits' sentiment sits beside it on every ticker page and is plotted against it on the stats page.
Stock Hype ScoreHype against sentiment
Attention vs Sentiment: common questions
- Is high attention good for a stock?
- It is neither good nor bad. It means many people are looking, for whatever reason, and says nothing certain about the price.
- What does a neutral sentiment score mean?
- On StockTwits, a score near 50: bullish and bearish posts roughly balanced over the last day, or too few tagged posts to lean either way.
Related
Not investment advice. Kovered publishes StockTwits watcher, sentiment and message volume readings and counts of public Reddit posts that name a stock or ETF, plus, for listed consumer companies, readings of the brands they own. It does not publish share prices, forecasts, ratings or recommendations to buy, sell or hold anything. Do your own research. Read the full notice.