Media Coverage and Investors’ Attention to Earnings Announcements

Abstract

Does investors’ inattention contribute to the post-earnings announcement drift? I study this question using media coverage as a proxy for attention. I compare announcements made by the same firm in the same year and generating the same earnings surprise, when one announcement is covered in the Wall Street Journal while the other is not. I find that announcements with media coverage generate a stronger price and trading volume reaction at the time of the announcement and less subsequent drift. Moreover, this effect is less pronounced for more visible firms and on high-distraction days. These results are both economically and statistically strong. They lend support to the notion that limited attention is an important source of friction in financial markets.

Keywords: attention, media, post-earnings announcement drift