Reddit vs X vs News: Which Social Sentiment Moves Stocks?

The short answer: none of them reliably moves stocks in a way you can trade. Each one measures a different crowd: Reddit is retail conviction, X is speed, news is the tone of coverage, and Polymarket is money on the line. The research is consistent on one point: attention arrives late. The stocks a crowd piles into most tend to give some of it back.

Educational only, not financial advice. A stock being discussed is not a reason to buy or sell it.

The ten most-discussed US stocks on each source, side by side. Switch the period to see whether a name is a one-day spike or a theme that has lasted all month.

Lists by Adanos, loaded in your browser from adanos.org when you reach this section (see our privacy policy). Buzz is Adanos' discussion score, Bullish is the share of positive mentions, and the line shows the trend. The same lists, one source at a time, are in the Social chip on the live dashboard.

Reddit: retail conviction

Reddit is where retail investors write at length: due-diligence posts, position screenshots, arguments in the comments. A name climbing the Reddit list means individual investors are talking about it, and often buying it. The weakness is herding: since 2021 the loudest communities have tended to pile into a few names at once.

X: speed

X mixes traders, analysts, companies, journalists and news accounts in short posts. It reacts first, within minutes of a headline, which makes it the fastest list and the noisiest. A spike on X that does not show up on Reddit or in the news the next day was often just a moment.

News: the tone of coverage

The news list counts how often publishers mention a stock. News mostly explains a move after it happens, so a stock at the top of the news list has usually already moved. What the research finds useful is the tone: unusually gloomy coverage has pushed prices down for a while before they recovered.

Polymarket: money on the line

Polymarket is a prediction market: people buy yes or no shares on an outcome, and the price is the crowd's probability. Since September 2025 it has run markets on whether listed companies beat their earnings estimates, launched with the trader community Stocktwits. Its list counts trades, not posts, so it is the only one of the four where every entry is backed by money. The catch is that there are far fewer stock markets than posts, and trading is thin on most of them.

Seven studies cover the four sources. Read across them and one pattern holds: crowd opinion carried real information when few people were using it, and lost it once the crowd became the story.

Each finding is from the study's own abstract or a summary of it, listed under Sources. The Robinhood study measures retail buying, not posts, and is here because it is the clearest evidence of what happens to the stocks a crowd piles into.

• On all four lists at once: the stock has broad attention, from retail, fast traders, the press and bettors. That is the moment the Robinhood study describes, when the crowd has already arrived.
• Today against 30D: a name that tops Today but is missing from 30D is a fresh spike; one that sits on both is a lasting theme. Spikes fade faster.
• Bullish is mood, not forecast: a 90% bullish share means the crowd is excited. Studies found the useful signal in negative wording, not in cheering.
• Polymarket is the odd one out: it counts money, not words. A busy earnings market shows a question people are willing to pay to answer.
• Check the price, not just the chatter: the live dashboard shows the indices, sectors and volatility behind the noise.

In January 2021, GameStop became the stock that turned social sentiment into a market force. The SEC's staff report of October 2021 found it had a combination of all five conditions behind the meme stocks: large price moves, large changes in volume, large short interest, frequent Reddit mentions, and heavy mainstream media coverage.

It also changed the crowd itself. The WallStreetBets research above found that after GameStop, posts shifted toward stocks chosen for attention and price pressure, and the forum's recommendations stopped predicting returns. A list of the most-discussed stocks today measures a crowd that knows it can move prices, and that is exactly why it is harder to profit from.

Does Reddit sentiment predict stock returns?

It used to, and then it stopped. A study of WallStreetBets due-diligence posts published in the Review of Financial Studies in 2024 found that buy recommendations predicted returns and earnings news before the January 2021 GameStop squeeze, and that the predictive power disappeared afterward, as posts shifted toward attention-grabbing stocks.

Does X (Twitter) sentiment predict the stock market?

The best-known claim is weak evidence. A 2011 study reported 87.6% accuracy in calling the Dow's daily up and down moves from Twitter mood, but it was tested over three weeks, 1 to 19 December 2008. A short test in one unusual market is a curiosity, not a trading rule.

What is the difference between Reddit, X, news and Polymarket sentiment?

They measure different crowds. Reddit is mostly retail investors writing longer posts, X is a fast mix of traders, analysts and news accounts, news reflects journalists and the tone of coverage, and Polymarket is people betting real money on yes or no outcomes such as whether a company beats its earnings estimate. Reddit, X and news lists count mentions; the Polymarket list counts trades.

Can heavy social media attention hurt a stock's returns?

The evidence says the crowd tends to arrive late. A 2022 Journal of Finance study of Robinhood users found that the stocks retail investors piled into most each day went on to underperform by an average of 4.7% over the next 20 trading days. Attention is not the same as an edge.

What do buzz, bullish and trend mean in the social sentiment lists?

Buzz is Adanos' score for how much a stock is being discussed, bullish is the share of mentions that are positive, and trend shows whether the discussion is rising or fading. A high bullish share tells you the mood of the crowd, not whether the price will rise.

Where can I see the most-discussed stocks on Reddit and X today for free?

On this page, which shows the top ten on Reddit, X, news sites and Polymarket side by side for today, 7 days or 30 days, and in the Social chip on the Global Markets Dashboard, which shows the top 15 for one source at a time. The lists are by Adanos, free, with no sign-up.

• Chen, De, Hu and Hwang, Wisdom of Crowds: The Value of Stock Opinions Transmitted Through Social Media, Review of Financial Studies 27(5), 2014.
• Bradley, Hanousek, Jame and Xiao, Place Your Bets? The Value of Investment Research on Reddit's Wallstreetbets, Review of Financial Studies 37(5), 2024; the 2,340-report sample is from the 2021 working paper.
• Barber, Huang, Odean and Schwarz, Attention-Induced Trading and Returns: Evidence from Robinhood Users, Journal of Finance 77(6), 2022.
• Bollen, Mao and Zeng, Twitter mood predicts the stock market, arXiv 1010.3003; sample and test window from the paper's data and results sections.
• Tetlock, Giving Content to Investor Sentiment: The Role of Media in the Stock Market, Journal of Finance 62, 2007.
• Wolfers and Zitzewitz, Prediction Markets, Journal of Economic Perspectives 18(2), 2004 (NBER working paper 10504).
• Rabetti, Shao and Zhang, Beating the Earnings Game: Why Do Prediction Markets Outperform Professional Analysts?, SSRN working paper 6649938, April 2026, as summarized by CXO Advisory.
• Polymarket's earnings markets: The Block, Polymarket brings prediction markets to company earnings after US clearance, September 2025.
• US Securities and Exchange Commission, Staff Report on Equity and Options Market Structure Conditions in Early 2021, 18 October 2021.
• Live lists: Adanos sentiment widgets.