The power of bad: The negativity bias in Australian consumer sentiment announcements on stock returns

Date

2011

Authors

Akhtar, Shumi
Faff, Robert
Oliver, Barry
Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Elsevier

Abstract

This paper examines the equity market reaction to the monthly release of Australian consumer sentiment news. Our results indicate that consumer sentiment has valuable information content. Further, we document a version of the " negativity effect" (from the psychology literature) in which, upon announcement of bad (good) sentiment news, the equity market experiences a significant negative (no) announcement day effect. Notably, we find that the market recovers from the bad news shock relatively quickly post-announcement. The results are robust to a broad range of additional tests.

Description

Keywords

Keywords: G14; Investor sentiment; Market efficiency; Stock market returns

Citation

Source

Journal of Banking and Finance

Type

Journal article

Book Title

Entity type

Access Statement

License Rights

Restricted until

2037-12-31