Partisanship has risen dramatically over the past several decades, and it has come to shape many aspects of our lives. In this study, we investigate whether partisanship affects how investors form opinions in the stock market. Specifically, we use party-identifying language—like “liberal media” and “MAGA”—to identify Republican users on the investor social platform StockTwits. Partisan Republicans remain relatively unfazed in their beliefs about equities during the COVID-19 pandemic, while other users become considerably more pessimistic. Looking at differences across stocks, Republicans become relatively more optimistic about stocks that suffered the most during the COVID-19 crisis, but more pessimistic about Chinese stocks. Finally, stocks with the greatest partisan disagreement on StockTwits have significantly more trading in the broader market, explaining 28% of the increase in stock turnover during the pandemic.

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