Manager sentiment and stock returns

Fuwei Jiang (), Joshua Lee, Xiumin Martin and Guofu Zhou

Journal of Financial Economics, 2019, vol. 132, issue 1, 126-149

Abstract: This paper constructs a manager sentiment index based on the aggregated textual tone of corporate financial disclosures. We find that manager sentiment is a strong negative predictor of future aggregate stock market returns, with monthly in-sample and out-of-sample R2s of 9.75% and 8.38%, respectively, which is far greater than the predictive power of other previously studied macroeconomic variables. Its predictive power is economically comparable and is informationally complementary to existing measures of investor sentiment. Higher manager sentiment precedes lower aggregate earnings surprises and greater aggregate investment growth. Moreover, manager sentiment negatively predicts cross-sectional stock returns, particularly for firms that are difficult to value and costly to arbitrage.

Keywords: Manager sentiment; Textual tone; Investor sentiment; Asset pricing; Return predictability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C53 G11 G12 G17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (172)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:132:y:2019:i:1:p:126-149

DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2018.10.001

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