Crowdsourced forecasts and the market reaction to earnings announcement news

Authors Schafhaute, Veenman
Journal The Accounting Review
Year 2024
Type Published Paper
Abstract This study examines whether crowdsourced forecasts of earnings and revenues help investors unravel bias in earnings announcement news, which is commonly derived from analyst forecasts. Our results suggest that investors, on average, understand and price the predictive signals reflected in crowdsourced forecasts about the bias in analyst-based earnings and revenue surprises. Using the staggered addition of firms to the Estimize platform, we find that crowdsourced coverage is associated with reductions in the mispricing of forecast bias and declines in earnings announcement premia. We further find some evidence that managers use income-increasing accruals to meet the crowdsourced forecast benchmark and that they respond to crowdsourced coverage through increased downward earnings and revenue guidance. Overall, we conclude that user-generated content on crowdsourced financial information platforms helps investors discount biases in traditional equity research and thereby better process the news in earnings announcements.
Keywords Crowdsourcing, Estimize, sell-side analysts, forecast bias, earnings announcements, market reactions
URL https://publications.aaahq.org/accounting-review/article-abstract/99/2/421/11602/Crowdsourced-Forecasts-and-the-Market-Reaction-to?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Manager / Firm Behavior

From strangers to friends: Tie formations and online activities in an evolving social network

Authors Ameri, Honka, Xie
Journal Journal of Marketing Research
Year 2023
Type Published Paper
Abstract The authors study how strangers become friends within an evolving online social network. By modeling the coevolution of individual users' friendship tie formations (when and with whom) and their concurrent online activities, the authors uncover important drivers underlying individuals' friendship decisions and, at the same time, quantify the resulting peer effects on individuals' actions. They estimate their model using a novel data set capturing the continuous development of a network and users' entire action histories within the network. The results reveal that similarity (homophily) with a potential friend, the properties of a potential friend's network, and the potential friend's domain expertise all play a role in friendship formation. Via prediction exercises, the authors find that stimulating anime watching is the most effective sitewide intervention, which leads to the highest overall site traffic and the largest number of active users, and that recommending a friend of a friend as a potential friend is the most effective strategy in stimulating friendship tie formation. In contrast to the common finding for static networks, the results indicate that seeding to users with the most friends is not the most effective strategy to increase users' activity levels in an evolving network.
URL https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00222437221107900
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Social Network Structure

Gender bias and crowd-sourced financial information

Authors Bhagwat, Dim, Shirley, Stark
Year 2023
Type Working Paper
Abstract The capacity to aggregate information from diverse perspectives has positioned social finance forums as a potent source of signals that shape investors' beliefs. We study the Seeking Alpha forum to determine if female contributors face a more hostile environment than males and the consequences for effective information aggregation. We find that although male and female contributors display similar abilities, female-authored perspectives receive significantly lower engagement and trust from platform users. Females also face more heightened disagreement and attract more online trolls. This combative environment results in more female contributors quitting the platform, eroding the informativeness of the platform consensus, and implies relatively lower financial compensation for female contributors.
Keywords Gender bias, social finance, social media, FinTech, information aggregation, disagreement
URL https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4669864
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Asset Pricing, Trading Volume and Market Efficiency  |   Propagation of Noise / Undesirable Outcomes

Investor disagreement, disclosure processing costs, and trading volume evidence from social media

Authors Booker, Curtis, Richardson
Journal The Accounting Review
Year 2023
Type Published Paper
Abstract We use posts on the investor-focused StockTwits social media network to generate new insights regarding investor disagreement, disclosure processing costs, and trading volume around earnings announcements. Using social media-based measures of disagreement, we find that both preannouncement disagreement and increases in disagreement around an earnings announcement are positively associated with trading volume. Drawing upon the disclosure processing costs literature, we provide evidence that the effects of disagreement increase when disclosure processing costs are lower. Our social media measures of disagreement remain significant after including traditional analyst earnings estimate measures of disagreement in the model. Our study provides new evidence on the importance of disclosure processing costs and is consistent with lower disclosure processing costs amplifying both the resolution of preannouncement disagreement and new disagreement about earnings information.
Keywords Disagreement, trading volume, social media, disclosure processing costs
URL https://publications.aaahq.org/accounting-review/article-abstract/98/1/109/386/Investor-Disagreement-Disclosure-Processing-Costs?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Asset Pricing, Trading Volume and Market Efficiency

Earnings virality

Authors Campbell, Drake, Thornock, Twedt
Journal Journal of Accounting and Economics
Year 2023
Type Published Paper
Abstract We examine the determinants and market consequences associated with earnings announcements going viral on social media, a phenomenon we label "earnings virality." Using a comprehensive panel of historical Twitter data, we find that the typical earnings announcement receives relatively little social media coverage, but others go viral on social media, quickly reaching the feeds of millions of people. We find that viral earnings announcements generally have Twitter content that is more extreme in tone and contains less unique content. Further, earnings virality is positively associated with revenue surprises, investor recognition, retail investor ownership, and retail investor trading around the announcement. Earnings virality appears to be detrimental to markets, as it coincides with lower market liquidity and slower price formation. Overall, our evidence suggests that user-driven dissemination through social media platforms, when amplified and taken to extreme levels, may be harmful to markets.
Keywords Earnings virality, viral, social media, earnings announcements
URL https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165410122000404?via%3Dihub
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Asset Pricing, Trading Volume and Market Efficiency

When products come alive: Interpersonal communication norms induce positive word of mouth for anthropomorphized products

Authors Chen, Sengupta, Zheng
Journal Journal of Consumer Research
Year 2023
Type Published Paper
Abstract Across five experiments, this research finds that product anthropomorphism enhances consumers' intention to share positive thoughts in their word-of-mouth (WOM) communication about such products, in the hope of creating a favorable interpersonal impression about themselves. Our theorizing suggests that the effect occurs because consumers apply a norm that originates in human-related communication--namely, that speaking positively of other people creates a more likable impression of speakers by making them seem more kind and polite--to their WOM for anthropomorphized products (study 1). As a result, when an impression management motive is salient, consumers display greater overall positivity in their WOM for an anthropomorphized product than for its non-anthropomorphized equivalent (study 2). Support for this prediction is found across various measures of WOM positivity. Furthermore, in line with this conceptualization, anthropomorphism-induced positivity diminishes (a) when consumers are less concerned about impression management, such as when talking to a close friend (study 3), (b) when an opposing accuracy motive overpowers the impression management motive (study 4), or (c) when the underlying belief that positivity will yield favorable impressions is itself challenged (study 5). Our conceptualization and findings inform and extend research on consumer WOM communication, product anthropomorphism, and impression management.
Keywords Consumer word of mouth, interpersonal communication norms, product anthropomorphism, impression management
URL https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/49/6/1032/6609178?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Consumer Decisions

Social influence in household equity investment: Evidence from randomized military drafts

Authors Chi, Hung, Lin, Tseng
Year 2023
Type Working Paper
Abstract We provide causal evidence of the peer effect on investment in a large-scale natural experiment. We show that retail investors respond to the investment decisions of their military peers who were randomly assigned in compulsory military drafts: retail investors participate more in the stock market, invest more in stocks that peers hold, and perform better. Our investigation indicates that retail investors learn valuable information from their peers to make profitable investment decisions. These effects are more pronounced among peers who are more sophisticated and among stocks entailing less behavioral bias. Stocks with more peer clientele outperform stocks with less clientele.
URL https://sites.google.com/view/timcchung/research
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Consumer Decisions  |   Experimental / Survey-Based Empirical  |   Financing- and Investment Decisions (Individual)

Private communication between managers and financial analysts: Evidence from taxi ride patterns in New York City

Authors Choy, Hope
Year 2023
Type Working Paper
Abstract This study constructs a novel measure that aims to capture face-to-face private communications between firm managers and sell-side analysts by mapping detailed, large-volume taxi trip records from New York City to the GPS coordinates of companies and brokerages. Consistent with earnings releases prompting needs for private communications, we observe that daily taxi ride volumes between companies and brokerages increase significantly around earnings announcement dates (EAD) and reach their peak on EAD. After controlling for an extensive set of fixed effects (firm, analyst, year, and firm-broker) and other potential confounding factors, we find that increases in ride volumes around EAD are negatively associated with analysts' earnings forecast errors in periods after EAD and positively associated with the profitability of recommendations issued after EAD (but these effects dissipate over longer horizons). Taken together, our results suggest that analysts may obtain a private source of information orthogonal to their pre-existing information from these in-person meetings, which may help them better understand the implications of current earnings signals for future earnings.
Keywords Private communications, sell-side analysts, taxis, private information, earnings forecasts, stock recommendations, profitability of stock recommendations, earnings announcements, Reg FD
URL https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3920680
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Asset Pricing, Trading Volume and Market Efficiency  |   Manager / Firm Behavior  |   Social Network Structure

I really know you: How influencers can increase audience engagement by referencing their close social ties

Authors Chung, Ding, Kalra
Journal Journal of Consumer Research
Year 2023
Type Published Paper
Abstract Despite firms' continued interest in using influencers to reach their target consumers, academic and practical insights are limited on what levers an influencer can use to enhance audience engagement using their posts. We demonstrate that posting stories with or about people whom they share close ties with--such as family, friends, and romantic partners--can be one effective lever. Content that incorporates close social ties can be effective for several reasons: it may increase perceptions of authenticity, enhance perceived similarity, increase the perception that the influencer possesses more warmth, and could satisfy viewers' interpersonal curiosity. We analyze texts and photographs of 55,631 posts of 763 influencers on Instagram, and after controlling for several variables, we find robust support that consumers "like" posts that reference close social ties. Furthermore, this effect enhances when first-person pronouns are used to describe special moments with these close ties. We supplement the Instagram data with an experimental approach and confirm the relationship between close ties and consumer engagement. Managerially, this is a useful insight as we also show that sponsored posts tend to be perceived negatively compared to non-sponsored posts; yet, embedding social ties on the sponsored posts can mitigate consumers' negative responses.
Keywords Social media, influencers, consumer engagement, social ties
URL https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/50/4/683/7077143?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Consumer Decisions

Active trading and (poor) performance: The social transmission channel

Authors Escobar, Pedraza
Journal Journal of Financial Economics
Year 2023
Type Published Paper
Abstract We study the influence from social interactions on equity trading. Using unique data on stock transactions, we exploit the quasi-random assignment of students to classrooms in a financial training program to identify how peer experience affects investor behavior. We find that individuals react more to peer gains than to peer losses. Students enrolled in courses where peers have positive outcomes: (i) are more likely to start trading, (ii) purchase similar stocks as their classmates, and (iii) are disproportionally attracted to stocks with extreme returns. These stocks have low subsequent returns, and new investors reacting to peer gains underperform other investors.
Keywords Stock market participation, peer effects, active trading, lottery stocks, social finance
URL https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X23001277
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Asset Pricing, Trading Volume and Market Efficiency  |   Experimental / Survey-Based Empirical

Visibility bias in the transmission of consumption beliefs and undersaving

Authors Han, Hirshleifer, Walden
Journal Journal of Finance
Year 2023
Type Published Paper
Abstract We model visibility bias in the social transmission of consumption behavior. When consumption is more salient than nonconsumption, people perceive that others are consuming heavily, and infer that future prospects are favorable. This increases aggregate consumption in a positive feedback loop. A distinctive implication is thatdisclosure policy interventions can ameliorate undersaving. In contrast with wealth-signaling models, information asymmetry about wealth reduces overconsumption. The model predicts that saving is influenced by social connectedness, observation bi-ases, and demographic structure, and provides new insight into savings rates. These predictions are distinct from other common models of consumption distortions.
URL https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jofi.13223
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Consumer Decisions  |   Social Transmission Biases

Finfluencers

Authors Kakhbod, Kazempour, Livdan, Schuerhoff
Year 2023
Type Working Paper
Abstract Tweet-level data from a social media platform reveals low average accuracy and high dispersion in the quality of advice by financial influencers, or "finfluencers": 28% of finfluencers are skilled, generating 2.6% monthly abnormal returns, 16% are unskilled, and 56% have negative skill ("antiskill") generating -2.3% monthly abnormal returns. Consistent with homophily shaping finfluencers' social networks, antiskilled finfluencers have more followers and more influence on retail trading than skilled finfluencers. The advice by antiskilled finfluencers creates overly optimistic beliefs most times and persistent swings in followers' beliefs. Consequently, finfluencers cause excessive trading and inefficient prices such that a contrarian strategy yields 1.2% monthly out-of-sample performance
Keywords Finfluencers, social media, mixture modeling, retail traders, homophily, belief bias
URL https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4428232
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Asset Pricing, Trading Volume and Market Efficiency  |   Financing- and Investment Decisions (Individual)  |   Media and Textual Analysis  |   Propagation of Noise / Undesirable Outcomes

Insider trading in news deserts

Authors Kyung, Nam
Journal The Accounting Review
Year 2023
Type Published Paper
Abstract This study examines the informational value of local news outlets and how they affect insider trading. We hypothesize that local news coverage is a critical channel through which outsiders acquire local information, which restricts insiders' ability to profit from their information advantage. We argue that a loss of local news coverage increases information opacity faced by outsiders, while making it easier for insiders to seize profitable trading opportunities. Exploring the staggered shutdown of local newspapers, our difference-in-differences estimation presents novel evidence that insiders from closure counties trade more profitably after local newspaper closures, particularly in small firms that lack alternative news sources. Further analyses reaffirm that the post-closure increase in trading profits is unlikely to be wholly driven by regional economic conditions and is likely driven by increased information costs. Our results highlight that local newspapers play a meaningful role in mitigating information asymmetry between insiders and outsiders.
Keywords Insider trading, newspaper, information asymmetry
URL https://publications.aaahq.org/accounting-review/article-abstract/98/6/299/11072/Insider-Trading-in-News-Deserts?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Tags Archival Empirical

Spilling the beans on political consumerism: Do social media boycotts and buycotts translate to real sales impact?

Authors Liaukonyte, Tuchman, Zhu
Journal Marketing Science
Year 2023
Type Published Paper
Abstract Brands increasingly face pressure from consumers to take a stance on political issues, but there is limited empirical evidence on the effect of political consumerism on sales. In this paper, we quantify the consequences of a brand taking a political stance. In July 2020, the chief executive officer of Goya, a large Latin food brand, praised then president Donald Trump, triggering a boycott and a counter "buycott" movement supporting the brand. Using consumer-level purchase data, we measure the net effect of the boycott/buycott movements on sales. Boycott-related social media posts and media coverage dominated buycott ones, but the sales impact was the opposite: Goya sales temporarily increased by 22%. However, this net sales boost fully dissipated within three weeks. We then explore heterogeneity in the sales response with the goal of understanding which households are most likely to engage in political consumerism and what factors serve as frictions to participation. We document large sales increases (56.4%) in heavily Republican counties but do not find a strong countervailing boycott effect in heavily Democratic counties or among Goya's core customer base-Latino consumers. Finally, we show that brand loyalty and switching costs are potential explanations for the limited evidence of boycotting among experienced Goya customers.
URL https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mksc.2022.1386
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Manager / Firm Behavior

The daily me versus the daily others: How do recommendation algorithms change user interests? Evidence from a knowledge-sharing platform

Authors Liu, Cong
Journal Journal of Marketing Research
Year 2023
Type Published Paper
Abstract Recommender systems on online platforms are often accused of polarizing user attention and consumption. The authors examine this phenomenon using a quasi-experiment conducted by Zhihu, the largest online knowledge-sharing platform (or Q&A community) in China. Zhihu originally used a content-based filtering algorithm, which recommends content to users on the basis of the topics to which each user has subscribed. After more than a year, Zhihu moved to a social filtering algorithm, which recommends content with which users' social connections are already engaged. The authors find that this algorithm change increased the creation of social ties by approximately 15% but decreased question subscriptions by 20% and answer contributions by 23%. The authors show that users' increased social interests mainly involved following popular users, leading to a greater concentration of social interests on the platform. However, users' topical interests became less concentrated, as popular topics received significantly fewer subscribers than unpopular topics. The authors explain these findings by exploring the underlying mechanism. They show that compared with content-based filtering algorithms, social filtering algorithms are more likely to expose general users to content consumed by their followees, who are more interested in niche topics than general users are.
URL https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00222437221134237
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Experimental / Survey-Based Empirical  |   Social Network Structure

The ripple effect of firm-generated content on new movie releases

Authors Lu, Dinner, Grewal
Journal Journal of Marketing Research
Year 2023
Type Published Paper
Abstract Marketers frequently create social media content (i.e., firm-generated content; FGC) to ignite interest in new movies. Thus, there is a clear need to understand the magnitude and heterogeneity of the effect of FGC on movie demand and associated user-generated content (UGC). The authors empirically examine the complex interactions among FGC, UGC, and sales using social media (tweet) data that are normally available to firms. They investigate two potential mechanisms by which FGC may drive box office revenues: (1) a direct mechanism, such that users who see FGC directly drive revenue, and (2) an indirect "ripple effect," by which FGC increases movie-related UGC, which then drives consumption. By analyzing 145,502 firm-generated and 5.9 million user-generated Twitter posts associated with 159 movies, the authors find a positive and significant effect of FGC on movie sales, which UGC fully mediates, which supports the indirect ripple effect reasoning. Impressions of FGC by followers of firm accounts, as opposed to nonfollowers of firm accounts, mainly drive the effect of FGC on UGC. In addition, FGC by movie accounts is more effective than that by actors and studios. Firms' regular posts with a movie-specific hashtag are more effective than replies, retweets, and posts without the hashtag. The finding of the ripple effect suggests that movie executives should focus on creating FGC that sparks conversations among followers when new movies are released.
URL https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00222437221143066
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Manager / Firm Behavior

How social media influencers impact consumer collectives: An embeddedness perspective

Authors Mardon, Cocker, Daunt
Journal Journal of Consumer Research
Year 2023
Type Published Paper
Abstract Research has documented the emergence of embedded entrepreneurs within consumer collectives. This phenomenon is increasingly prevalent as social media enables ordinary consumers to become social media influencers (SMIs), a distinct form of embedded entrepreneur. Whilst research has considered the implications of embeddedness for embedded entrepreneurs themselves, we lack insight into embedded entrepreneurship's impact on consumer collectives. To address this gap, we draw from a longitudinal, qualitative study of the YouTube beauty community, where SMIs are pervasive. Informed by interactionist role theory, we document the Polanyian "double movement" prompted by the emergence of SMIs within the community. We demonstrate that the economy within the community was initially highly embedded, constrained by behavioral norms linked to established social roles. SMIs' attempts to disembed the economy created dysfunctional role dynamics that reduced the benefits of participation for non-entrepreneurial community members. This prompted a countermovement whereby SMIs and their followers attempted to re-embed SMIs' economic activity via role negotiation strategies. Our analysis sheds new light on the negative implications of embedded entrepreneurship for non-entrepreneurial members of consumer collectives, highlights the role of social media platforms in negotiations of embeddedness, and advances wider conversations surrounding the evolution of consumer collectives and the impact of SMIs.
Keywords Embedded entrepreneurship, consumer collectives, social media influencers, embeddedness, double movement, interactionist role theory
URL https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article/50/3/617/6978199
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Consumer Decisions  |   Experimental / Survey-Based Empirical

Looking into crystal balls: A laboratory experiment on reputational cheap talk

Authors Meloso, Nunnari, Ottaviani
Journal Management Science
Year 2023
Type Published Paper
Abstract We experimentally study information transmission by experts motivated by their reputation for being well-informed. In our game of reputational cheap talk, a reporter privately observes information about a state of the world and sends a message to an evaluator; the evaluator uses the message and the realized state of the world to assess the reporter's informativeness. We manipulate the key driver of misreporting incentives: the uncertainty about the phenomenon to forecast. We highlight three findings. First, misreporting information is pervasive even when truthful information transmission can be an equilibrium strategy. Second, consistent with the theory, reporters are more likely to transmit information truthfully when there is more uncertainty on the state. Third, evaluators have difficulty learning reporters' strategies and, contrary to the theory, assessments react more strongly to message accuracy when reporters are more likely to misreport. In a simpler environment with computerized evaluators, reporters learn to best reply to evaluators' behavior and, when the state is highly uncertain and evaluators are credulous, to transmit information truthfully.
URL https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4629
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Experimental / Survey-Based Empirical

Rejections are more contagious than choices: How another's decisions shape our own

Authors Nan, Park, Yang
Journal Journal of Consumer Research
Year 2023
Type Published Paper
Abstract Every day, we learn about others' decisions from various sources. We perceive some of these decisions as choices and others as rejections. Does the mere perception of another's decision as a choice versus as a rejection influence our own behavior? Are we more likely to conform to another's decision if we view it in one way or the other? The current research investigates the social influence of decision frames. Eight studies, including a field study conducted during a livestreaming event hosted by an influencer with over 1.5 million followers, find that people are more likely to conform to another's decision if it is perceived as a rejection than if it is perceived as a choice. This effect happens because consumers are more likely to attribute another's decision to product quality as opposed to personal preference, when consumers perceive another's decision as a rejection than as a choice. The inference about quality versus personal preference in turn increases conformity. This research bridges the existing literatures on decision framing, social influence, and perceptions of quality and personal preference, and it offers important implications for marketers and influencers.
Keywords Framing effect, choice versus rejection, social influence, conformity, attribution, quality versus personal preference
URL https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article/50/2/363/7133747
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Consumer Decisions  |   Experimental / Survey-Based Empirical

A turn of the tables: Psychological contracts and word of mouth about sharing economy platforms when consumers get reviewed

Authors Rifkin, Kirk, Corus
Journal Journal of Consumer Research
Year 2023
Type Published Paper
Abstract The Peer-to-Peer sector of the sharing economy relies on reputation systems through which consumers and providers review each other. Whereas prior research has examined the effects of reviews by consumers on providers and firms, this research examines, for the first time, a turn of the tables in which consumers are evaluated. Across a pilot and seven studies (five preregistered), using multiple actual behaviors and sharing contexts, results reveal that a negative review of the consumer from the peer provider leads to negative word of mouth (NWOM) about the platform. Drawing from psychological contract theory, the research demonstrates that this effect is mediated by consumers' perceived betrayal by the platform. Two sets of moderators are identified. The first set establishes that a breach of consumers' psychological contract with the platform underlies the effect. In the second set, platform policies that may render a breach more or less consequential can intensify or mitigate consumer reactions. Specifically, making the review private (vs. public) and providing opportunities for justice restoration (response, revenge, and dispute) attenuate the effect of review valence on betrayal and NWOM. Implications for sharing economy platform managers and consumers are discussed.
Keywords Sharing economy, reputation systems, platform intermediation, psychological contract, negative word of mouth, reviews
URL https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/50/2/382/6984723?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Consumer Decisions

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