Soccer and Economy Lead News-Reactive Markets
A new study from Vera Research analyzed over 567,000 news-to-market reaction measurements across 3,707 markets and 123,424 news items from April 29 to July 13, 2026. The study found that news about certain subjects was more likely to move a market than others.
The research revealed that news about crypto, soccer, or geopolitics repriced a market five cents or more about one time in ten. In contrast, news about the economy, politics, or tech did so only about one time in thirty to one in forty-five.
However, when evaluating how often each subject's markets moved on news, soccer and economy stood out as the most news-reactive subjects. Soccer was found to be the most reactive in 27 of 28 specifications, with economy second in all but one specification.
The study also noted that crypto, tech, politics, and geopolitics markets were tied together, making it impossible to order them against each other. This was due to the fact that they occupied multiple rank positions across different specifications.