Investor Emotions and Earnings Announcements
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, volume 30, 2021[10.1016/j.jbef.2021.100474]
67 Pages Posted: 22 Jun 2020 Last revised: 20 Dec 2021
Date Written: June 13, 2020
Abstract
Armed with a decade of social media data, I explore the impact of investor emotions on earnings announcements. In particular, I test whether the emotional content of firm-specific messages posted on social media just prior to a firm's earnings announcement predicts its earnings and announcement returns. I find that investors are typically excited about firms that end up exceeding expectations, yet their enthusiasm results in lower announcement returns. Specifically, a standard deviation increase in excitement is associated with an 7.8 basis points lower announcement return, which translates into an approximately -5.8% annualized loss. My findings confirm that emotions and market dynamics are closely related and highlight the importance of considering investor emotions when assessing a firm's short-term value.
Keywords: deep learning, investor emotions, capital markets
JEL Classification: G41, L82
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation