Home-Country Media Slant and Equity Prices

Abstract

We study national newspaper reporting and investor beliefs across the U.S., Germany, and Japan. Using novel large-scale hand-coded media data for the automotive industry, we show that news about companies is systematically more positive in companies’ home countries than abroad. Home-country media slant increases during bad times for companies, and it correlates strongly with equity prices. Cross-country difference in news tone predicts temporary price deviations of cross-listed stocks. Abnormally high home-media news tone predicts low monthly domestic stock returns. The effects are strongest for confirmatory news and weakest when home-biased investors are likely distracted by sporting events.

Keywords: media slant, media bias, textual analysis, investor sentiment, cross-listed stocks, confirmatory bias

JEL Classification: L82, D23, F23