How Social Data Predicted This Week's Chewbacca-Fueled Run Up In Hasbro's Share Price

The latest data from TickerTags indicates that the massive popularity of Hasbro, Inc. HAS’s new hit toy, as well as the stock’s surging share price, could have been predicted using social media data.

TickerTags monitors social media sites to identify trends by searching for words or phrases that appear together in social media content, such as tweets.

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Ironically, Walt Disney Co DIS and Facebook Inc FB are both partially responsible for Hasbro’s recent strength.

It all started last week when Candace Payne, aka “Chewbacca Mom,” used Facebook Live to broadcast a haul video in which she reviewed Hasbro’s Chewbacca Electronic Mask. The video received more than 50 million views within 24 hours, and the mask subsequently sold out in stores and online.

Incredibly, even though the next installment of Disney’s "Star Wars" movie franchise will not hit theaters until December, organic social media mentions of “Chewbacca” + “mask” recently surged 1,442 percent higher than mentions of Disney’s 'Frozen' doll, a top-seller during the 2014 holiday season. In addition, social media mentions of the Chewbacca mask are now 555 percent higher than mentions of Disney’s remote-controlled BB-8 toy, one of the biggest hits of the 2015 holiday shopping season.

Hasbro’s stock is up 3.2 percent in the past five trading days.

Disclosure: The author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.