Investor attention,aggregate limit-hits,and stock returns

We develop a simple measure of investor attention by aggregating the number of days that a stock hits the upper or lower limit on a monthly basis. This attention proxy describes investor trading behavior and contains information of future stock returns. Using data from the Chinese equity market from 2002 to 2017, we provide extensive evidence that the investor attention captured by our measure negatively predicts cross-sectional stock returns, and the long–short trading strategy based on this attention measure produces significant economic value. We argue that the attention-motivated trading is the main cause behind the return predictability of aggregate limit-hits.     

The diffusion of corporate governance to emerging markets: Evaluating two dimensions of investor heterogeneity

This study investigates whether foreign institutional investors can enhance shareholder value in emerging markets. We pay special attention to two dimensions of investor heterogeneity: whether investors declare themselves to be activists, and whether activists come from countries with strong traditions of investor activism (identified by the incidence of hostile takeovers in their respective home countries). First, using an event study approach with regard to announcements of block purchases by foreign institutional investors in Korea, we find that stock prices increase only when foreign institutional investors declare themselves to be activists (increasing on average by 3% over a 20-day window). Second, we find that positive stock price reactions are more pronounced when the activist investors come from source countries with strong traditions of investor activism (increasing on average by 7% over a 20-day window). Third, we find that target firms are more likely to reduce cash holdings, raise leverage ratios, and peg dividend payouts, stock repurchases, and CEO turnover more closely to changes in earnings, but only if foreign activists come from countries with strong traditions of activism. We address possible selection bias by propensity score matching.     

Financial disclosure,investor protection and stock market behavior: an international comparison

The main purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between financial opacity, investor protection and stock market behavior for sixteen countries. We use the 1995 CIFAR corporate disclosure ratings and the 2006 World Bank investor protection index to measure a country’s relative level of financial transparency and legal protection for investors. The return behavior of each country is examined using numerous time series tests such as serial correlation, Markov chain, runs, duration dependence and variance ratio tests. We found that the results show no significant differences between high and low disclosure countries. However, high disclosure countries appear to be associated with a lower level of stock market volatility. Cox proportional hazard test results indicate that extreme returns (positive and negative) are more likely in low disclosure countries.     

投资者关注度与股票市场——以PM2.5概念股为例

近年来雾霾成为中国社会的热点话题,而雾霾频发导致PM2.5概念股受到投资者广泛的关注。本文结合现实环境问题,研究投资者通过对环境的关注度继而对与环境相关的股票的影响。具体而言,本文探究投资者对雾霾和PM2.5概念股的关注度对PM2.5概念股的影响。分析发现投资者对雾霾和PM2.5概念股的关注度的增加能拉升PM2.5概念股的股价。投资者对雾霾的关注度和PM2.5概念股的收益率显著正相关。关注度的增加同时也提高PM2.5概念股交易的活跃程度以及PM2.5概念股涨停的可能性。此外,本文发现正面的新闻报道会拉升PM2.5概念股的股价而负面的新闻报道会降低其股价。最后,本文通过讨论内生性和异质性等一系列稳健性检验进一步验证上述结论。     

Investor attention,firm-specific characteristic,and momentum: A case of the Korean stock market

This study examines the sources of negative momentum profits by combining investor attention and the properties of common and firm-specific factors. We choose the Korean stock market as a good case to characterize the negative momentum profits identified in Asia. In both portfolio and stock analyses, a method is devised to generate return data involving the property of each common and firm-specific factor within stock groups by investor attention. This study found significant negative momentum profits within the stock group with high investor attention. This momentum effect is highly dependent on the reversed performance of the past loser portfolio, not the continued performance of the past winner portfolio, and this reversal is strongly attributable to the properties of firm-specific factors, and not those of common factors. These results are robustly consistent regardless of changes in empirical design and the consideration of influence factors, market dynamics, and other stock markets.     

Sentiment stocks

To study how investor sentiment at the firm level affects stock returns, we match more than 58 million social media messages in China with listed firms and construct a measure of individual stock sentiment based on the tone of those messages. We document that positive investor sentiment predicts higher stock risk-adjusted returns in the very short term followed by price reversals. This association between stock sentiment and stock returns is not explained by observable stock characteristics, unobservable time-invariant characteristics, market-wide sentiment, overreaction to news, or changing investor attention. Consistent with theories of investor sentiment, we find that the link between sentiment and stock returns is mainly driven by positive sentiment and non-professional investors. Finally, exploiting a unique feature of the Chinese stock market, we are able to isolate the causal effect of sentiment on stock returns from confounding factors.     

In Search of Attention

We propose a new and direct measure of investor attention using search frequency in Google (Search Volume Index (SVI)). In a sample of Russell 3000 stocks from 2004 to 2008, we find that SVI (1) is correlated with but different from existing proxies of investor attention; (2) captures investor attention in a more timely fashion and (3) likely measures the attention of retail investors. An increase in SVI predicts higher stock prices in the next 2 weeks and an eventual price reversal within the year. It also contributes to the large first‐day return and long‐run underperformance of IPO stocks.     

Are survey forecasts of individual and institutional investor sentiments rational?

We examine the effects of rational risk factors on investor sentiments. We find that institutional investor sentiments are more rational than individual investor sentiments. There are significant positive effects of, market return and dividend yield and negative effect of inflation on both types of sentiments. These risk factors have stronger effects on institutional than individual investor sentiments. Also, there are significant effects of term spread and HML on the institutional investor sentiments. The evidence suggests that linkages between sentiments and stock return stems from a combination of rational outlook and noise i.e. expectations that are not fully justified by information.     

Information uncertainty,investor sentiment,and analyst reports

This study investigates the relationships among information uncertainty, investor sentiment, analyst reports, and stock returns in a unified framework. The effects of analyst reports on stock returns depend on the degrees of information uncertainty, indicating that recommendation upgrades (downgrades) convey more valuable positive (negative) information under higher information uncertainty. Such stock market reactions are significantly explained by investor sentiment when information uncertainty is high. Our empirical findings are robust to changes in abnormal return measures and information uncertainty proxies.     

无权处分场合买卖合同的效力与权利瑕疵担保

《民法典》第597条第1款的主要规范目的是,无权处分不影响买卖合同的效力。只要承认权利人的追认会产生所有权变动的效果,就适宜承认存在效力未定的处分行为。区分负担行为和处分行为,在解释论上具有可取之处。在传统债法上,无权处分致使给付不能的,存在适用债务不履行责任抑或权利瑕疵担保责任的争论,两方面规定在构成要件上有实质区别。我国《民法典》合同编实行救济进路,第三人享有所有权、抵押权等权利致使所有权不能转移的,当事人可以选择适用《民法典》第597条第1款或第612条,两者在违约责任的构成要件和效果上并无实质区别。《民法典》第612条中规定的第三人“享有权利”文义范围较窄,应当对其进行目的论扩张,将第三人“过去享有权利”且主张权利的一些情形纳入其中;即使买受人构成善意取得,仍可认定出卖人违反权利瑕疵担保义务。     

投资者关注与市场反应——来自中国证券交易所交易公开信息的自然实验

涨停的股票能否被交易公开信息披露取决于收益率排名中的随机因素,与股票的基本面特征无关。本文利用这一机制设计自然实验检验了投资者关注对股价的影响。实证结果显示交易公开信息披露使股票受到投资者更多的关注,增加了小额资金的净流入,减少了大额资金的净流入和股价的短期收益率,抑制了股价短期波动率,同时降低了股价在长期发生反转的可能性。频繁登上交易公开信息的知名营业部买入的股票受到更多关注,相应的市场反应也更加显著。进一步的研究表明监管性信息披露引发的投资者关注通过降低市场信息不对称抑制了股价反转。     

Investor sentiment and return predictability of disagreement

This study examines the influence of investor sentiment on the relationship between disagreement among investors and future stock market returns. We find that the relationship between disagreement and future stock market returns time-varies with the degree of investor sentiment. Higher disagreement among investors’ opinions predicts significantly lower future stock market returns during high-sentiment periods, but it has no significant effect on future stock market returns during low-sentiment periods. Our findings imply that investor sentiment is related to several causes of short-sale impediments suggested in the previous literature on investor sentiment, and that the stock return predictability of disagreement is driven by investor sentiment. We demonstrate that investor sentiment has a significant impact on the stock market return predictability of disagreement through in-sample and out-of-sample analyses. In addition, the profitability of our suggested trading strategy exploiting disagreement and investor sentiment level confirms the economic significance of incorporating investor sentiment into the relationship between disagreement among investors and future stock market returns.     

When does attention matter? The effect of investor attention on stock market volatility around news releases

We empirically investigate how retail and institutional investor attention is related to the way stock markets process information. With a focus on 360 US stocks in the S&P 500 universe, our results show that higher retail investors’ attention around news releases increases the post-announcement stock return volatility, whereas institutional investor attention has a small but negative impact on volatility on days following news releases on average over the cross-section of companies. These findings are in line with the hypotheses that attention of retail investors slows price-adjustments to new information and attention of institutional investors results in the opposite reaction. We show that these effects are heterogeneous in the type of news and the topic of the information being released. A portfolio allocation application highlights that these results are not only statistically significant but also sizeable in economic terms and can lead to an overperformance as large as dozens of basis points.     

A dynamic equilibrium model for U-shaped pricing kernels

This paper proposes a dynamic equilibrium model that can provide a unified explanation for the stylized facts observed in stock index markets such as the fat tails of the risk-neutral return distribution relative to the physical distribution, negative expected returns on deep OTM call options and negative realized variance risk premiums. In particular, we focus on the U-shaped pricing kernel against the stock index return, which is closely related to the negative call returns. We assume that the stock index return follows a time-changed Lévy process and that a representative investor has power utility over the aggregate consumption that forms a linear regression of the stock index return and its stochastic activity rate. This model offers a macroeconomic interpretation of the stylized facts from the perspective of the sensitivity of the activity rate and stock index return on aggregate consumption as well as the investor’s risk aversion.     

The Pitch Rather Than the Pit: Investor Inattention,Trading Activity,and FIFA World Cup Matches

This paper analyzes stock market trading in 15 countries during the 2010 and 2014 soccer FIFA World Cups. We find evidence for substantial investor inattention during these major sporting events. The lack of attention for the trading pit is particularly large when the national soccer team is competing, with traded volumes declining by as much as 48%. During national team matches, prices on local stock markets can temporarily decouple from global financial market developments. These findings suggest that major sporting events can act as a laboratory in which to investigate investor inattention.     

Agency Conflicts, Investment, and Asset Pricing

The separation of ownership and control allows controlling shareholders to pursue private benefits. We develop an analytically tractable dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to study asset pricing and welfare implications of imperfect investor protection. Consistent with empirical evidence, the model predicts that countries with weaker investor protection have more incentives to overinvest, lower Tobin's q, higher return volatility, larger risk premia, and higher interest rate. Calibrating the model to the Korean economy reveals that perfecting investor protection increases the stock market's value by 22%, a gain for which outside shareholders are willing to pay 11% of their capital stock.     

Twitter investor sentiment and corporate earnings announcements

We examine the impact of firm-specific investor sentiment (FSIS) on stock returns for negative and positive earnings surprises. Using a measure constructed from firm-specific tweets, we find that FSIS has a greater impact on stock returns for negative relative to positive earnings surprises. We further show that the impact of FSIS is greater for firms whose valuation is uncertain and difficult to arbitrage. Moreover, we provide evidence of return reversals over post-announcement periods. Our results highlight the importance of FSIS around earnings announcements.     

International cross-listings by Australian firms: A stochastic dominance analysis of equity returns

This paper examines the share return and risk exposure consequences of Australian companies deciding to cross-list on major international stock exchanges. Due to limited sample availability of cross-listing transactions by Australian companies and concerns regarding non-normality, we apply bootstrapping and stochastic dominance techniques to evaluate share return and return variance changes following cross-listings. The findings provide evidence that firm share returns decline following the undertaking of cross-listings, with an associated fall in the post-listing variance in share returns. Measures of the importance and ownership concentration of stockmarkets in destination countries are found to be correlated with post-listing share return outcomes, however, no evidence of superior return or risk reduction benefits from firms cross-listing in countries providing stronger investor protection or higher accounting reporting and disclosure requirements is identified.     

Investor attention,information acquisition,and value premium: A mispricing perspective

This paper investigates the impact of investor attention on the dynamics of the value premium. We find superior return differences to value-growth strategy conditioned as low degree of investor attention. In contrast, return differences to the value-growth strategy conditioned as high investor attention are indifferent from zero. We show that return differences to low degree of investor attention across value and growth firms are attributed to mispricing explanation using common risk factors, mispricing factors, sentiment analysis, multivariate analysis, and market expectation errors approach. The findings suggest that investor attention contributes to generating superior return differences to standard value-growth strategy. Our finding concludes that long-short investment strategy in value stocks and growth stocks conditioned as low investor attention generate superior value premium.     

The contribution of stock repurchases to the value of the firm and cash holdings around the world

Using corporate payout data from 33 economies, this study investigates the contribution of stock repurchases to the value of the firm and cash holdings in different country-level investor protection environments. We find that stock repurchases contribute more to firm value in countries with strong investor protection than in countries with weak investor protection. We also report that dividends contribute approximately 60% more to firm value than repurchases in countries with weak investor protection. Furthermore, as the proportion of repurchases in total payouts increases, the marginal value of cash increases in countries with strong investor protection, whereas it declines in countries with weak investor protection. In a poor investor protection environment, the marginal value of cash for a firm that makes 100% of its payouts via repurchases is 12 cents lower than that for a firm that distributes 100% of its payouts via dividends. Overall, our findings highlight that stock repurchases are less effective than dividends in mitigating agency problems associated with free cash flow in countries with poor investor protection.