IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/ijmfpp/ijmf-08-2023-0389.html

Can institutional investors influence media sentiment?

Author

Listed:
  • Heng (Emily) Wang
  • Xiaoyang Zhu

Abstract

Purpose - The dissemination of misleading and false information through media can jeopardize a company’s reputation, thus posing a threat to its stock and performance. Institutional investors are known to influence capital markets. Therefore, this paper investigates whether institutional investors engage in shaping the media sentiment stock nexus, stabilize company stocks and enhance performance. Design/methodology/approach - We first investigate the effect of media sentiment on market reactions by using panel regression models. To examine the role of institutional investors, we design a quasi-experiment by exploiting the Financial Crisis of 2008 and go further by examining the heterogeneity across levels of institutional ownership. Due to risk-averse, investors may respond asymmetrically to pessimistic and positive sentiment. Accordingly, we split the sample into two sub-types, good news and bad news, based on keywords representing positive or negative content. Findings - We find supportive evidence that institutional investors have impacts on how the markets react to media news, and the impacts are heterogeneous in the face of bad and good news. We conjecture that institutional investors act as a stabilizer of stock prices through media sentiment management. Originality/value - This paper confirms the distinctive effects of institutional investors on capital markets, and uncovers the behind-the-scenes intervention and possible causal link running from institutional investors to media sentiment management. It contributes to the broad field of institutional investors' behavior, media news involvement in capital markets and market efficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Heng (Emily) Wang & Xiaoyang Zhu, 2024. "Can institutional investors influence media sentiment?," International Journal of Managerial Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 20(5), pages 1295-1319, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:ijmfpp:ijmf-08-2023-0389
    DOI: 10.1108/IJMF-08-2023-0389
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJMF-08-2023-0389/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJMF-08-2023-0389/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/IJMF-08-2023-0389?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bushee, Brian & Cedergren, Matthew & Michels, Jeremy, 2020. "Does the media help or hurt retail investors during the IPO quiet period?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1).
    2. Reuven Lehavy & Richard G. Sloan, 2008. "Investor recognition and stock returns," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 327-361, September.
    3. Alex Edmans, 2009. "Blockholder Trading, Market Efficiency, and Managerial Myopia," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(6), pages 2481-2513, December.
    4. Bajo, Emanuele & Raimondo, Carlo, 2017. "Media sentiment and IPO underpricing," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 139-153.
    5. De Long, J Bradford & Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers & Robert J. Waldmann, 1990. "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 703-738, August.
    6. Solomon, David H. & Soltes, Eugene & Sosyura, Denis, 2014. "Winners in the spotlight: Media coverage of fund holdings as a driver of flows," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 53-72.
    7. Cao, Jie & Han, Bing & Wang, Qinghai, 2017. "Institutional Investment Constraints and Stock Prices," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(2), pages 465-489, April.
    8. Chung, Kee H. & Zhang, Hao, 2011. "Corporate Governance and Institutional Ownership," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(1), pages 247-273, February.
    9. 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.
    10. Gustavo Grullon, 2004. "Advertising, Breadth of Ownership, and Liquidity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(2), pages 439-461.
    11. Gan, Baoqing & Alexeev, Vitali & Bird, Ron & Yeung, Danny, 2020. "Sensitivity to sentiment: News vs social media," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    12. 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.
    13. Veronesi, Pietro, 1999. "Stock Market Overreaction to Bad News in Good Times: A Rational Expectations Equilibrium Model," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(5), pages 975-1007.
    14. Hang Nguyen & Roger Calantone & Ranjani Krishnan, 2020. "Influence of Social Media Emotional Word of Mouth on Institutional Investors’ Decisions and Firm Value," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(2), pages 887-910, February.
    15. Steven L. Heston & Nitish Ranjan Sinha, 2017. "News vs. Sentiment: Predicting Stock Returns from News Stories," Financial Analysts Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 73(3), pages 67-83, July.
    16. Paul C. Tetlock & Maytal Saar‐Tsechansky & Sofus Macskassy, 2008. "More Than Words: Quantifying Language to Measure Firms' Fundamentals," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1437-1467, June.
    17. Jose A. Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2003. "Overconfidence and Speculative Bubbles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1183-1219, December.
    18. Gu, Chen & Kurov, Alexander, 2020. "Informational role of social media: Evidence from Twitter sentiment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    19. Xavier Gabaix & Parameswaran Gopikrishnan & Vasiliki Plerou & H. Eugene Stanley, 2006. "Institutional Investors and Stock Market Volatility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 461-504.
    20. Roman Kräussl & Elizaveta Mirgorodskaya, 2017. "Media, sentiment and market performance in the long run," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(11), pages 1059-1082, September.
    21. Kenneth R. Ahern & Denis Sosyura, 2014. "Who Writes the News? Corporate Press Releases during Merger Negotiations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(1), pages 241-291, February.
    22. Paul C. Tetlock, 2007. "Giving Content to Investor Sentiment: The Role of Media in the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1139-1168, June.
    23. Xu, Feng & Wan, Difang, 2015. "The impacts of institutional and individual investors on the price discovery in stock index futures market: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 221-231.
    24. Lily Fang & Joel Peress, 2009. "Media Coverage and the Cross‐section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 2023-2052, October.
    25. Stambaugh, Robert F. & Yu, Jianfeng & Yuan, Yu, 2012. "The short of it: Investor sentiment and anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 288-302.
    26. Wu, Chen-Hui & Lin, Chan-Jane, 2017. "The impact of media coverage on investor trading behavior and stock returns," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 151-172.
    27. Alexander Dyck & Natalya Volchkova & Luigi Zingales, 2008. "The Corporate Governance Role of the Media: Evidence from Russia," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1093-1135, June.
    28. Li, Tong & Chen, Hui & Liu, Wei & Yu, Guang & Yu, Yongtian, 2023. "Understanding the role of social media sentiment in identifying irrational herding behavior in the stock market," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 163-179.
    29. Dyck, Alexander & Lins, Karl V. & Roth, Lukas & Wagner, Hannes F., 2019. "Do institutional investors drive corporate social responsibility? International evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(3), pages 693-714.
    30. Cahill, Daniel & Wee, Marvin & Yang, Joey W., 2017. "Media sentiment and trading strategies of different types of traders," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 160-172.
    31. Martin T. Bohl & Christian A. Salm & Michael Schuppli, 2011. "Price discovery and investor structure in stock index futures," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(3), pages 282-306, March.
    32. William J. Mayew & Mohan Venkatachalam, 2012. "The Power of Voice: Managerial Affective States and Future Firm Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(1), pages 1-44, February.
    33. Ekkehart Boehmer & Eric K. Kelley, 2009. "Institutional Investors and the Informational Efficiency of Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(9), pages 3563-3594, September.
    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. Matthias M M Buehlmaier & Josef Zechner, 2021. "Financial Media, Price Discovery, and Merger Arbitrage [Who writes the news? Corporate press releases during merger negotiations]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 25(4), pages 997-1046.
    2. Naumer, Hans-Jörg & Yurtoglu, Burcin, 2022. "It is not only what you say, but how you say it: ESG, corporate news, and the impact on CDS spreads," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    3. Hillert, Alexander & Jacobs, Heiko & Müller, Sebastian, 2018. "Journalist disagreement," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 57-76.
    4. Pereira, Camila C. & Bastos, Saulo B. & Cajueiro, Daniel O., 2025. "The words that lead to uncertainty: A measure based on word embeddings," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 49(3).
    5. Gao, Xin & Xu, Weidong & Li, Donghui, 2025. "Media coverage and managerial investment learning from stock markets: International evidence," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    6. Henry Hyun-Do Kim & Kwangwoo Park, 2021. "Impact of Environmental Disaster Movies on Corporate Environmental and Financial Performance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-35, January.
    7. Ni Yang & Adrian Fernandez‐Perez & Ivan Indriawan, 2025. "The price impact of tweets: A high‐frequency study," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 147-171, February.
    8. Call, Andrew C. & Emett, Scott A. & Maksymov, Eldar & Sharp, Nathan Y., 2022. "Meet the press: Survey evidence on financial journalists as information intermediaries," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2).
    9. Bonsall, Samuel B. & Green, Jeremiah & Muller, Karl A., 2020. "Market uncertainty and the importance of media coverage at earnings announcements," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1).
    10. Laura Xiaolei Liu & Ann E. Sherman & Yong Zhang, 2014. "The Long-Run Role of the Media: Evidence from Initial Public Offerings," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(8), pages 1945-1964, August.
    11. Chang, Liang & Liang, Xiaojun & Tan, Na, 2025. "Tossed by the tides of emotion: The impact of online media sentiment on stock returns," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    12. Liu, Sha & Han, Jingguang, 2020. "Media tone and expected stock returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    13. Li, Yi & Zhang, Wei & Urquhart, Andrew & Wang, Pengfei, 2022. "The role of media coverage in the bubble formation: Evidence from the Bitcoin market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    14. Lawrence, Alastair & Ryans, James & Sun, Estelle & Laptev, Nikolay, 2018. "Earnings announcement promotions: A Yahoo Finance field experiment," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 399-414.
    15. Di Giuli, Alberta & Laux, Paul A., 2022. "The effect of media-linked directors on financing and external governance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 103-131.
    16. Robert M. Bushman & Christopher D. Williams & Regina Wittenberg‐Moerman, 2017. "The Informational Role of the Media in Private Lending," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 55(1), pages 115-152, March.
    17. Liu, Yahui & Zhao, Wenxuan & Gao, Di & Chen, Zhaohui, 2026. "From chain waves to market moves: Untangling price efficiency in the supply chain network," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    18. Chahine, Salim & Mansi, Sattar & Mazboudi, Mohamad, 2015. "Media news and earnings management prior to equity offerings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 177-195.
    19. Chouliaras, Andreas, 2016. "The Effect of Infomation on Financial Markets: A Survey," MPRA Paper 71396, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Rui Fan & Oleksandr Talavera & Vu Tran, 2018. "Does connection with @realDonaldTrump affect stock prices?," Working Papers 2018-07, Swansea University, School of Management.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • 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:eme:ijmfpp:ijmf-08-2023-0389. 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: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.