Relationship between Herd Behavior and Chinese Stock Market Fluctuations during a Bullish Period Based on Complex Networks

Herding has a great impact on stock market fluctuations, and it is possible for researchers to analyze the herding effect due to the recent popularity of mobile Internet and the development of big data analysis technology. In this paper, we propose both investor-based and stock-based sentiment propagation networks of Chinese stock markets based on the simple pairwise correlation of posts’ sentiment indexes. And the relationship between the herding effect and Chinese stock market fluctuations is studied by comparing the network indicators with the Shanghai Securities Composite Index (SSCI) and the Causeway International Value Index (CIVIX). Through the experimental results, we find that the indicators are indeed ahead of the Chinese stock market. This study is the first attempt to model stock market sentiment by using a complex network, and it proves that investor behavior has a great effect on the stock market.