Stock & Search Interest Analysis: COUR vs PSO

Introduction

This report compares Google search interest and stock price performance for COUR (Coursera) and PSO (Pearson) over the past four years.

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Load Required Packages

# Install packages (only needed once)
# install.packages("gtrendsR")
# install.packages("quantmod")
# install.packages("lubridate")

library(gtrendsR)
library(quantmod)
library(lubridate)

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Google Trends Search Interest (U.S.)

stock_trends <- gtrends(c("COUR", "PSO"),
                        gprop = "web",
                        geo = c("US"))

plot(stock_trends)

## Warning: `aes_string()` was deprecated in ggplot2 3.0.0.
## ℹ Please use tidy evaluation idioms with `aes()`.
## ℹ See also `vignette("ggplot2-in-packages")` for more information.
## ℹ The deprecated feature was likely used in the gtrendsR package.
##   Please report the issue at <https://github.com/PMassicotte/gtrendsR/issues>.
## This warning is displayed once per session.
## Call `lifecycle::last_lifecycle_warnings()` to see where this warning was
## generated.

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Yahoo Finance Stock Price Data (Last 4 Years)

# Download stock data
getSymbols('COUR', src = 'yahoo',
           from = Sys.Date() - years(4),
           to = Sys.Date())

## [1] "COUR"

getSymbols('PSO', src = 'yahoo',
           from = Sys.Date() - years(4),
           to = Sys.Date())

## [1] "PSO"

# Combine closing prices
stocks <- as.xts(data.frame(COUR = COUR$COUR.Close,
                            PSO  = PSO$PSO.Close))

# Plot stock prices
plot(as.zoo(stocks),
     screens = 1,
     lty = c(1,3),
     col = c("blue","red"),
     xlab = "Date",
     ylab = "Price")

legend("top", c("COUR","PSO"),
       lty = c(1,3),
       col = c("blue","red"),
       cex = 0.7)

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Summary of Findings

• Google search interest fluctuates over time for both companies.
• Stock prices show volatility over the past four years.
• COUR tends to show higher volatility relative to PSO.
• Movements in search interest may align with major announcements or earnings releases.