IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v59y2013i11p2566-2585.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When the Tail Wags the Dog: Industry Leaders, Limited Attention, and Spurious Cross-Industry Information Diffusion

Author

Listed:
  • Ling Cen

    (Rotman School of Management and Department of Management (UTSc), University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E6, Canada)

  • Kalok Chan

    (Department of Finance, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong)

  • Sudipto Dasgupta

    (Department of Finance, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong)

  • Ning Gao

    (Accounting and Finance Group, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Manchester M15 6PB, United Kingdom)

Abstract

Within an industry, stock returns of larger firms lead those of smaller firms, suggesting an intraindustry information diffusion process. Most industry leaders, however, have business segments in other industries (henceforth, minor-segment industries), whereas most small firms are pure players operating in one industry only. If investors cannot filter out the irrelevant information from the leaders' minor segments, the pure players will be mispriced due to spurious cross-industry information diffusion (SCIID). Consistent with the SCIID hypothesis, we document both a strong contemporaneous and a lead--lag relation in stock returns between firms from industry leaders' minor-segment industries and pure players in the industry leaders' major-segment industry. Our results are not due to potential missing common factors or economic relationships between pure players and firms in the minor-segment industries. This paper was accepted by Wei Xiong, finance.

Suggested Citation

  • Ling Cen & Kalok Chan & Sudipto Dasgupta & Ning Gao, 2013. "When the Tail Wags the Dog: Industry Leaders, Limited Attention, and Spurious Cross-Industry Information Diffusion," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(11), pages 2566-2585, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:59:y:2013:i:11:p:2566-2585
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2013.1722
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2013.1722
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.2013.1722?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Keim, Donald B & Stambaugh, Robert F, 1984. "A Further Investigation of the Weekend Effect in Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 819-835, July.
    2. Peng, Lin & Xiong, Wei, 2006. "Investor attention, overconfidence and category learning," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 563-602, June.
    3. Kewei Hou, 2007. "Industry Information Diffusion and the Lead-lag Effect in Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(4), pages 1113-1138.
    4. Lang, Larry H P & Stulz, Rene M, 1994. "Tobin's q, Corporate Diversification, and Firm Performance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(6), pages 1248-1280, December.
    5. Tarun Chordia & Bhaskaran Swaminathan, 2000. "Trading Volume and Cross‐Autocorrelations in Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 913-935, April.
    6. Boudoukh, Jacob & Richardson, Matthew P & Whitelaw, Robert F, 1994. "A Tale of Three Schools: Insights on Autocorrelations of Short-Horizon Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 7(3), pages 539-573.
    7. Lauren Cohen & Andrea Frazzini, 2008. "Economic Links and Predictable Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1977-2011, August.
    8. Lior Menzly & Oguzhan Ozbas, 2010. "Market Segmentation and Cross‐predictability of Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(4), pages 1555-1580, August.
    9. Lo, Andrew W & MacKinlay, A Craig, 1990. "When Are Contrarian Profits Due to Stock Market Overreaction?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 3(2), pages 175-205.
    10. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1997. "Industry costs of equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, February.
    11. Bessembinder, Hendrik & Hertzel, Michael G, 1993. "Return Autocorrelations around Nontrading Days," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(1), pages 155-189.
    12. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May.
    13. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    14. 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.
    15. David Hirshleifer & Sonya S. Lim & Siew Hong Teoh, 2011. "Limited Investor Attention and Stock Market Misreactions to Accounting Information," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(1), pages 35-73.
    16. Vijh, Anand M, 1994. "S&P 500 Trading Strategies and Stock Betas," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 7(1), pages 215-251.
    17. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2008. "All That Glitters: The Effect of Attention and News on the Buying Behavior of Individual and Institutional Investors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 785-818, April.
    18. Brennan, Michael J & Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Swaminathan, Bhaskaran, 1993. "Investment Analysis and the Adjustment of Stock Prices to Common Information," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(4), pages 799-824.
    19. Karl Lins & Henri Servaes, 1999. "International Evidence on the Value of Corporate Diversification," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2215-2239, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chi Dong & Hooi Hooi Lean & Zamri Ahmad & Wing-Keung Wong, 2019. "The Impact of Market Condition and Policy Change on the Sustainability of Intra-Industry Information Diffusion in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-20, February.
    2. Gao, George P. & Moulton, Pamela C. & Ng, David T., 2017. "Institutional ownership and return predictability across economically unrelated stocks," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 45-63.
    3. Choi, Hae Mi & Gupta-Mukherjee, Swasti, 2022. "Analysts’ reliance on industry-level versus firm-specific information: Implications for information production," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    4. Chi Dong & Hooi Hooi Lean & Zamri Ahmad, 2017. "Intra-industry information diffusion in China's stock market," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(1), pages 1-11.
    5. Kenneth Högholm & Johan Knif & Gregory Koutmos & Seppo Pynnönen, 2021. "Financial crises and the asymmetric relation between returns on banks, risk factors, and other industry portfolio returns," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 179-198, February.

    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. Laopodis, Nikiforos T., 2016. "Industry returns, market returns and economic fundamentals: Evidence for the United States," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 89-106.
    2. Yu, Miao & Hu, Xiaolu & Zhong, Angel, 2023. "Trade links and return predictability: The Australian evidence," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    3. Sharifkhani, Ali & Simutin, Mikhail, 2021. "Feedback loops in industry trade networks and the term structure of momentum profits," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(3), pages 1171-1187.
    4. Hirshleifer, David & Hsu, Po-Hsuan & Li, Dongmei, 2013. "Innovative efficiency and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 632-654.
    5. Lee, Charles M.C. & Shi, Terrence Tianshuo & Sun, Stephen Teng & Zhang, Ran, 2024. "Production complementarity and information transmission across industries," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    6. Ashish Agarwal & Alvin Chung Man Leung & Prabhudev Konana & Alok Kumar, 2017. "Cosearch Attention and Stock Return Predictability in Supply Chains," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(2), pages 265-288, June.
    7. Zhu, Hui, 2014. "Implications of limited investor attention to customer–supplier information transfers," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 405-416.
    8. Chi Dong & Hooi Hooi Lean & Zamri Ahmad & Wing-Keung Wong, 2019. "The Impact of Market Condition and Policy Change on the Sustainability of Intra-Industry Information Diffusion in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-20, February.
    9. Lin, Mei-Chen & Wu, Chu-Hua & Chiang, Ming-Ti, 2014. "Investor attention and information diffusion from analyst coverage," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 235-246.
    10. Oh, Jong-Min, 2017. "Absorptive capacity, technology spillovers, and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 146-164.
    11. Jannati, Sima, 2020. "Geographic spillover of dominant firms’ shocks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    12. Masaki Mori, 2015. "Information Diffusion in the U.S. Real Estate Investment Trust Market," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 190-214, August.
    13. David Hirshleifer & Po-Hsuan Hsu & Dongmei Li, 2018. "Innovative Originality, Profitability, and Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(7), pages 2553-2605.
    14. Lee, Charles M.C. & Sun, Stephen Teng & Wang, Rongfei & Zhang, Ran, 2019. "Technological links and predictable returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(3), pages 76-96.
    15. Roger K. Loh, 2010. "Investor Inattention and the Underreaction to Stock Recommendations," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 1223-1252, September.
    16. Ali, Usman & Hirshleifer, David, 2020. "Shared analyst coverage: Unifying momentum spillover effects," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(3), pages 649-675.
    17. Bozok, İhsan & Özyıldırım, Süheyla, 2022. "Firm centrality and limited attention," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 483-500.
    18. Chenchen Li & Rui Li & Xundi Diao & Chongfeng Wu, 2020. "Market segmentation and supply‐chain predictability: evidence from China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(2), pages 1531-1562, June.
    19. Anna Scherbina & Bernd Schlusche, 2016. "Economic linkages inferred from news stories and the predictability of stock returns," AEI Economics Working Papers 873600, American Enterprise Institute.
    20. Gao, George P. & Moulton, Pamela C. & Ng, David T., 2017. "Institutional ownership and return predictability across economically unrelated stocks," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 45-63.

    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:inm:ormnsc:v:59:y:2013:i:11:p:2566-2585. 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    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.