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Revealed: Most influential celebrity movers and shakers of stock market world

Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey, the talk show host, entrepreneur and author, made a huge impact in January 2016 for Weight Watchers when she tweeted 'Eat bread. Lose weight. Whaaatttt?', leading to a 23% change to the company's stock price. Photo: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk tops the charts of celebrities who are most likely to impact stocks, followed by talk show host Oprah Winfrey and musician Kanye West.

In fourth place was singer Justin Bieber, followed by model and businesswoman Kylie Jenner.

“With millions of companies to choose from, it’s understandable that some people turn to key figureheads and even celebrities to inspire their financial decisions,” said a report by Money.co.uk, which looked at which celebrities have the biggest impact on a company’s prices from their activity on social media.

Music artist Kanye West arrives for his private concert at the Nokia Theatre in New York City August 29, 2006. REUTERS/Eric Thayer (UNITED STATES)
A tweet from Kanye Wet last year sent Gap's shares soaring. Photo: Reuters (ERIC THAYER / Reuters)

The study analysed tweets over the past five years by breaking down the time at which they were posted, and the immediate impact on the stock of the company mentioned.

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It found that not only is Musk “the most vocal” about other companies on social media, his tweets have also caused huge differences to share prices as investors take his word as “golden”.

SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk looks on as he visits the construction site of Tesla's gigafactory in Gruenheide, near Berlin, Germany, May 17, 2021. REUTERS/Michele Tantussi
Elon Musk runs Tesla and SpaceX. He's the most influential celebrity when it comes to stocks and cryptos. Photo: Getty Images (Michele Tantussi / reuters)

Musk on average caused an 84% average change to the share prices of the companies he mentioned, based on analysis of 17 tweets.

But his most impactful tweet ever was "Use Signal" from earlier this year. He was likely referring to the messaging app in the light of privacy concerns over WhatsApp.

However, it ended up boosting the wrong company's stock, as the Signal app isn't listed. Medical device company Signal Advance's stock went soaring after the tweet.

His tweets have also impacted cryptocurrencies bitcoin (BTC-USD) and dogecoin (DOGE-USD), the report said.

Musk also caused a 352% change in the gaming industry as he fuelled the frenzied surge in GameStop (GME) shares. On 26 January Musk tweeted “Gamestonk!!”.

Read more: Online trading platforms crash amid GameStop and AMC stock market frenzy

The made-up word is a combination of GameStop and stonks, a slang term for stocks.

Meanwhile Winfrey, the talk show host, entrepreneur and author, who is also an official spokesperson for Weight Watchers (WW), made a huge impact in January 2016 for the brand when she tweeted “Eat bread. Lose weight. Whaaatttt?", leading to a 23% change to the company's stock price.

“Investors clearly saw her involvement with the brand as a reason to grab a slice of the action,” said the report.

And then there's West, who caused Gap’s (GPS) stock to soar 23% after he announced a new collaboration between the US retailer and his fashion brand Yeezy, putting the apparel company “officially back on the map - and in a strong position within the market”.

As for Bieber, sharing a post from his personal Instagram account of a picture of Crocs (CROX) in a pool with the caption “soon" boosted the shoe company’s shares by 7.6%.

Kylie Jenner of the famous Kardashian clan made headlines in 2018 for tweeting about not using Snapchat (SNAP) any more. This led to a drop of 7% to the company stock price, after many users and investors turned away from the brand.

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