Asymmetric Attention and Volatility Asymmetry

(with Marc Oliver Rieger and Tõnn Talpsepp)
Journal of Empirical Finance, 2018, vol. 45, pp. 59–67. DOI: 10.1016/j.jempfin.2017.09.010

Analyzing a large sample of U.S. firms, we show that the asymmetry of stock return volatility is positively related to investor attention and differences of opinion. Using the number of analysts following a given firm to capture attention and the dispersion in analyst forecasts as a common proxy for differences of opinion, we show that the two effects are complementary. Furthermore, the effect of attention is strongest among stocks with low institutional ownership and high idiosyncratic volatility. Our results are robust to the traditional “leverage effect” explanation of volatility asymmetry. The findings relate to the previously documented relationship between attention and volatility and suggest that volatility asymmetry is driven by asymmetric attention.

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Measuring economic uncertainty and its impact on the stock market

Finance Research Letters, 2012, vol. 9(3), pp. 167–175. DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2011.10.003

This paper proposes a novel measure of economic uncertainty based on the frequency of internet searches. The theoretical motivation is offered by findings in economic psychology that agents respond to increased uncertainty by intensifying their information search. The main advantages of using internet searches are broad reach, timeliness and the fact that they reflect actions, rather than words, which however are not directly related to the stock market. The search-based uncertainty measure compares well against a peer group of alternative indicators and is shown to have a significant relationship with aggregate stock returns and volatility.