POLITICAL NEWS’ IMPACT ON RUSSIAN COMPANIES’ STOCK PRICES

This study explores the impact of political news on the stock prices of Russian companies over the period 1 September 2021 – 31 August 2023. The sample includes 200 companies, for each of which the industry of activity and the region of location of the headquarters were determined. Political news data were sourced from 50 Telegram channels, and 20 thematic topics were created using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model. The research tests hypotheses of the impact of political news on stock returns throughout the entire period in both regional and industry contexts. The results show that integrating political news improves return forecasts for 117 companies, with effects consistent across industries and regions. The study highlights the political news topics that had the most significant impact on Russian companies during the analyzed period.