Retail Attention, Institutional Attention

We document distinctly different clientele effects in investor attention and return responses to information. Macro news crowds out retail investor attention to firms’ earnings news by 49%. For stocks with high retail ownership, macro news dampens earnings announcement returns by 17% and substantially increases post-announcement drift, especially during high VIX periods. In contrast, macro news increases institutional investor attention to scheduled earnings announcements but not their attention to unscheduled analysts’ forecast revisions. The findings confirm the implications of rational inattention models and highlight the importance of considering clientele effects in understanding the effect of news on attention and asset prices.

Keywords: Attention, retail investors, institutional investors, crowding-out effect, earnings announcements, analyst forecast revisions

JEL Classification: G10, G11, G12, G14

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Liu, Hongqi and Peng, Lin and Tang, Yi, Retail Attention, Institutional Attention (April 12, 2019). Baruch College Zicklin School of Business Research Paper No. 2019-05-03, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3370683 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3370683