IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jecfin/v48y2024i2d10.1007_s12197-024-09663-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Retail and institutional trading during a COVID-19 presidential press conference

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew D. Crook

    (Southeastern Louisiana University)

  • Andrew A. Lynch

    (University of Arkansas)

  • Brian R. Walkup

    (Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic substantially impacted many aspects of regular life including financial markets. The increased media attention and slowdown associated with the pandemic provide the opportunity to explore how both institutional and retail traders react to an attention-grabbing event. We examine how the market responded to a unique presidential press conference including CEOs of eight publicly-listed U.S. companies addressing the U.S.’s response to the pandemic. Using the press conference on March 13, 2020, we examine the effect on the trading volatility and returns for each of the eight companies represented. We find positive abnormal returns for the companies participating in the press conference. Using the Robintrack data aggregated from the Robinhood retail trading platform and intraday TAQ data, we see that both retail and institutional trading volume increased on the press conference day. However, the increase in retail trading approximately doubled the increase in institutional trading. For the two companies with the lowest Robinhood user ownership prior to the press conference, ownership more than doubled within an hour of the press conference. Panel VAR analysis including control firms shows the press conference resulted in significant intraday returns, volume, and buy-order imbalances in participating firms’ stock.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew D. Crook & Andrew A. Lynch & Brian R. Walkup, 2024. "Retail and institutional trading during a COVID-19 presidential press conference," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 48(2), pages 544-562, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jecfin:v:48:y:2024:i:2:d:10.1007_s12197-024-09663-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s12197-024-09663-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12197-024-09663-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12197-024-09663-0?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. Pagano, Michael S. & Sedunov, John & Velthuis, Raisa, 2021. "How did retail investors respond to the COVID-19 pandemic? The effect of Robinhood brokerage customers on market quality," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    2. Michael R. M. Abrigo & Inessa Love, 2016. "Estimation of panel vector autoregression in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 16(3), pages 778-804, September.
    3. Azi Ben-Rephael & Zhi Da & Ryan D. Israelsen, 2017. "It Depends on Where You Search: Institutional Investor Attention and Underreaction to News," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(9), pages 3009-3047.
    4. Joseph Engelberg & Caroline Sasseville & Jared Williams, 2012. "Market Madness? The Case of Mad Money," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 351-364, February.
    5. Ivo Welch, 2022. "The Wisdom of the Robinhood Crowd," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(3), pages 1489-1527, June.
    6. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    7. Abreu, Dilip & Brunnermeier, Markus K., 2002. "Synchronization risk and delayed arbitrage," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 341-360.
    8. Ekkehart Boehmer & Charles M. Jones & Xiaoyan Zhang & Xinran Zhang, 2021. "Tracking Retail Investor Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(5), pages 2249-2305, October.
    9. Eaton, Gregory W. & Green, T. Clifton & Roseman, Brian S. & Wu, Yanbin, 2022. "Retail trader sophistication and stock market quality: Evidence from brokerage outages," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 502-528.
    10. Ozik, Gideon & Sadka, Ronnie & Shen, Siyi, 2021. "Flattening the Illiquidity Curve: Retail Trading During the COVID-19 Lockdown," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(7), pages 2356-2388, November.
    11. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    12. 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.
    13. Joseph E. Engelberg & Christopher A. Parsons, 2011. "The Causal Impact of Media in Financial Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(1), pages 67-97, February.
    14. Xiaolin Huo & Zhigang Qiu, 2020. "How does China’s stock market react to the announcement of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown?," Economic and Political Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(4), pages 436-461, October.
    15. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 1999. "Home Bias at Home: Local Equity Preference in Domestic Portfolios," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2045-2073, December.
    16. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    17. HaiYue Liu & Yile Wang & Dongmei He & Cangyu Wang, 2020. "Short term response of Chinese stock markets to the outbreak of COVID-19," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(53), pages 5859-5872, November.
    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. Baig, Ahmed S. & Blau, Benjamin M. & Butt, Hassan A. & Yasin, Awaid, 2022. "Do retail traders destabilize financial markets? An investigation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    2. Baig, Ahmed S. & Blau, Benjamin M. & Butt, Hassan A. & Yasin, Awaid, 2023. "Reprint of: Do retail traders destabilize financial markets? An investigation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    3. Kryzanowski, Lawrence & Rouhghalandari, Ali, 2024. "Institutional/retail investor active attention and behavior: Firm coverage on Mad Money," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).
    4. Wang, Albert Y. & Young, Michael, 2023. "Mood, attention, and household trading: Evidence from terrorist attacks," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    5. Philipp Stephan & Rüdiger Nitzsch, 2013. "Do individual investors’ stock recommendations in online communities contain investment value?," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 27(2), pages 149-186, June.
    6. Guomei Tang & Xueyong Zhang, 2021. "Media attention to locations and the cross‐section of stock returns," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(S1), pages 2301-2336, April.
    7. Hwang, Yoontae & Park, Junpyo & Kim, Jang Ho & Lee, Yongjae & Fabozzi, Frank J., 2024. "Heterogeneous trading behaviors of individual investors: A deep clustering approach," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    8. Brad M. Barber & Xing Huang & Terrance Odean & Christopher Schwarz, 2022. "Attention‐Induced Trading and Returns: Evidence from Robinhood Users," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(6), pages 3141-3190, December.
    9. Clancey-Shang, Danjue, 2023. "COVID lockdown, Robinhood traders, and liquidity in stock and option markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    10. Diefeng Peng & Yulei Rao & Mei Wang, 2016. "Do Top 10 Lists of Daily Stock Returns Attract Investor Attention? Evidence from a Natural Experiment," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 16(4), pages 565-593, December.
    11. Hillert, Alexander & Jacobs, Heiko & Müller, Sebastian, 2018. "Journalist disagreement," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 57-76.
    12. Bang Dang Nguyen, 2015. "Is More News Good News? Media Coverage of CEOs, Firm Value, and Rent Extraction," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 5(04), pages 1-38, December.
    13. Xin Chen & Wei He & Libin Tao & Jianfeng Yu, 2023. "Attention and Underreaction-Related Anomalies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 636-659, January.
    14. Ahmad, Fawad & Oriani, Raffaele, 2022. "Investor attention, information acquisition, and value premium: A mispricing perspective," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    15. Billett, Matthew T. & Jiang, Zhan & Rego, Lopo L., 2014. "Glamour brands and glamour stocks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PB), pages 744-759.
    16. Roland Füss & Massimo Guidolin & Christian Koeppel, 2019. "Sentiment Risk Premia In The Cross-Section of Global Equity," Working Papers on Finance 1913, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance, revised May 2020.
    17. Borah, Abhishek & Bahadir, S.Cem & Colicev, Anatoli & Tellis, Gerard J., 2022. "It pays to pay attention: How firm's and competitor's marketing levers affect investor attention and firm value," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 227-246.
    18. Roland Fuess & Massimo Guidolin & Christian Koeppel, 2019. "Sentiment Risk Premia in the Cross-Section of Global Equity and Currency Returns," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 19116, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    19. Liu, Sha & Han, Jingguang, 2020. "Media tone and expected stock returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    20. Christiane Goodfellow & Dirk Schiereck & Steffen Wippler, 2013. "Are behavioural finance equity funds a superior investment? A note on fund performance and market efficiency," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 14(2), pages 111-119, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; Pandemic; Retail trading; Institutional trading; Investor attention;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:spr:jecfin:v:48:y:2024:i:2:d:10.1007_s12197-024-09663-0. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.