IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reveco/v85y2023icp473-487.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Speculation and clarification announcements on stock price fluctuations: Why are rumours plausible and hard to clarify?

Author

Listed:
  • Shi, Qi
  • Ye, Yong
  • Zhao, Gang

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, stock markets were fragile and sensitive to downside news regardless of whether the news was true. In China, stock rumours are increasingly rampant, affecting the sound development of the capital market. By manually gathering a sample of rumours about Chinese A-share firms, this paper studies the effects of stock market rumours and the corresponding rumour clarifications on stock returns. The study suggests that rumours rely on the information environment to persuade the market through the media effect. In terms of information disclosure, for firms that previously disclosed “negative news”, stock prices would experience abnormal drops when negative rumours appear. In terms of the media effect, rumours released by leading media cause even more significant abnormal fluctuations in stock prices. Further study shows that positive rumours significantly cause an abnormal rise in state-owned enterprises' stock prices, while negative rumours significantly cause an abnormal decline in small and medium enterprise board (SME) and growth enterprise market board (GEM) stock prices. From the perspective of the effect of clarification announcements in restraining stock price fluctuations, clear and timely clarifications are recommended.

Suggested Citation

  • Shi, Qi & Ye, Yong & Zhao, Gang, 2023. "Speculation and clarification announcements on stock price fluctuations: Why are rumours plausible and hard to clarify?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 473-487.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:reveco:v:85:y:2023:i:c:p:473-487
    DOI: 10.1016/j.iref.2023.01.018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1059056023000266
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.iref.2023.01.018?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen A. Ross, 1977. "The Determination of Financial Structure: The Incentive-Signalling Approach," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 8(1), pages 23-40, Spring.
    2. Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2003. "Limited attention, information disclosure, and financial reporting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1-3), pages 337-386, December.
    3. Carvalho, Carlos & Klagge, Nicholas & Moench, Emanuel, 2011. "The persistent effects of a false news shock," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 597-615, September.
    4. Mathur, Ike & Waheed, Amjad, 1995. "Stock Price Reactions to Securities Recommended in Business Week's "Inside Wall Street."," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 30(3), pages 583-604, August.
    5. Halil Kiymaz, 2002. "The stock market rumours and stock prices: a test of price pressure and size effect in an emerging market," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(7), pages 469-474.
    6. Peter M. Clarkson & Daniel Joyce & Irene Tutticci, 2006. "Market reaction to takeover rumour in Internet Discussion Sites," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 46(1), pages 31-52, March.
    7. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    8. Lloyd-Davies, Peter & Canes, Michael, 1978. "Stock Prices and the Publication of Second-Hand Information," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(1), pages 43-56, January.
    9. Paul C. Tetlock, 2007. "Giving Content to Investor Sentiment: The Role of Media in the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1139-1168, June.
    10. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:1259-1294 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Gur Huberman & Tomer Regev, 2001. "Contagious Speculation and a Cure for Cancer: A Nonevent that Made Stock Prices Soar," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 387-396, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fedyk, Anastassia & Hodson, James, 2023. "When can the market identify old news?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(1), pages 92-113.
    2. Goodell, John W. & Kumar, Satish & Li, Xiao & Pattnaik, Debidutta & Sharma, Anuj, 2022. "Foundations and research clusters in investor attention: Evidence from bibliometric and topic modelling analysis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 511-529.
    3. Igor Semenenko, 2019. "Rumor Mill and Merger Waves: Analysis of Aggregate Market Activity," Journal of Applied Finance & Banking, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 9(2), pages 1-5.
    4. Michaely, Roni & Rubin, Amir & Vedrashko, Alexander, 2016. "Are Friday announcements special? Overcoming selection bias," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 65-85.
    5. Joel Peress, 2014. "The Media and the Diffusion of Information in Financial Markets: Evidence from Newspaper Strikes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(5), pages 2007-2043, October.
    6. Chakrabarty, Bidisha & Moulton, Pamela C., 2012. "Earnings announcements and attention constraints: The role of market design," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 612-634.
    7. Zhibing Li & Jie Liu & Xiaoyu Liu & Chonglin Wu, 2024. "Investor attention and stock price efficiency: Evidence from quasi‐natural experiments in China," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 53(1), pages 175-225, March.
    8. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Jiao, Peiran & Veiga, André & Walther, Ansgar, 2020. "Social media, news media and the stock market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 63-90.
    10. Xiong Xiong & Zhang Jin & Jin Xi & Feng Xu, 2016. "Review on Financial Innovations in Big Data Era," Journal of Systems Science and Information, De Gruyter, vol. 4(6), pages 489-504, December.
    11. Vozlyublennaia, Nadia, 2014. "Investor attention, index performance, and return predictability," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 17-35.
    12. Cai, Haidong & Jiang, Ying & Liu, Xiaoquan, 2022. "Investor attention, aggregate limit-hits, and stock returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    13. Yu-Jane Liu & Zheng Zhang & Longkai Zhao, 2015. "Speculation Spillovers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(3), pages 649-664, March.
    14. Buehlmaier, Matthias M. M. & Zechner, Josef, 2016. "Financial media, price discovery, and merger arbitrage," CFS Working Paper Series 551, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    15. Verhoeks, Ralph C. & Verschoor, Willem F.C. & Zwinkels, Remco C.J., 2024. "Wall street watches Washington: Asset pricing implications of policy uncertainty," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    16. Chiao, Chaoshin & Lin, Tung-Ying & Lee, Cheng-Few, 2017. "The reactions to on-air stock reports: Prices, volume, and order submission behavior," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 27-46.
    17. Bonsall, Samuel B. & Green, Jeremiah & Muller, Karl A., 2020. "Market uncertainty and the importance of media coverage at earnings announcements," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1).
    18. Ben R. Marshall & Nuttawat Visaltanachoti & Genevieve Cooper, 2014. "Sell the rumour, buy the fact?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 54(1), pages 237-249, March.
    19. Swasti Gupta‐Mukherjee & Ankur Pareek, 2020. "Limited attention and portfolio choice: The impact of attention allocation on mutual fund performance," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 49(4), pages 1083-1125, December.
    20. Arcuri, Maria Cristina & Gandolfi, Gino & Russo, Ivan, 2023. "Does fake news impact stock returns? Evidence from US and EU stock markets," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 125.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:reveco:v:85:y:2023:i:c:p:473-487. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620165 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.