Disseminating information across connected firms — Analyst site visits can help

Zhengyu Cao, Rundong Wang, Xinrong Xiao and Chengxi Yin

Journal of Empirical Finance, 2023, vol. 72, issue C, 510-531

Abstract: When information is disseminated across fundamentally connected firms at a fast pace, limited investor attention should be mitigated. We investigate whether analyst site visits to public firms have any impact on the lead–lag effect, a well-known phenomenon induced by limited investor attention. We find that analyst site visits to a focal firm’s connected firms almost eliminate the lead–lag effect between the visited connected firms and the focal firm at weekly frequency. The Fama–French five-factor alpha drops from 0.365% (t-statistic=3.26) per week for the strategy based on lagged returns of a firm’s non-visited connected firms to -0.082% (t-statistic=-0.97) per week for the strategy based on lagged returns of visited connected firms. We further provide evidence that analyst site visits to connected firms help improve forecast accuracy for the forecasted firm. These results indicate that analyst site visits help disseminate information across connected firms.

Keywords: Limited attention; Lead–lag effect; Shared analyst coverage; Analyst site visits (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G10 G12 G14 G24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:empfin:v:72:y:2023:i:c:p:510-531

DOI: 10.1016/j.jempfin.2023.04.010

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