This paper investigates the stock market reaction to sudden changes in investor mood. Motivated by psychological evidence of a strong link between soccer outcomes and mood, we use international soccer results as our primary mood variable. We find a significant market decline after soccer losses. For example, a loss in the World Cup elimination stage leads to a next-day abnormal stock return of - 49 basis points. This loss effect is stronger in small stocks and in more important games, and is robust to methodological changes. We also document a loss effect after international cricket, rugby, and basketball games. Copyright 2007 by The American Finance Association.

This paper studies the effect of sentiment on asset prices during the 20th century (1905 to 2005). As a proxy for sentiment, we use the fraction of positive and negative words in two columns of financial news from the New York Times. The main contribution of the paper is to show that, controlling for other well‐known time‐series patterns, the predictability of stock returns using news' content is concentrated in recessions. A one standard deviation shock to our news measure during recessions predicts a change in the conditional average return on the DJIA of 12 basis points over one day.

This paper shows that stocks of truly local firms have returns that exceed the return on stocks of geographically dispersed firms by 70 basis points per month. By extracting state name counts from annual reports filed with the SEC on form 10 K, we distinguish firms with business operations in only a few states from firms with operations in multiple states. Our findings are consistent with the view that lower investor recognition for local firms results in higher stock returns to compensate investors for insufficient diversification.JEL classification: A12, G14.

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This paper investigates the stock market reaction to sudden changes in investor mood. Motivated by psychological evidence of a strong link between soccer outcomes and mood, we use international soccer results as our primary mood variable. We find a significant market decline after soccer losses. For example, a loss in the World Cup elimination stage leads to a next-day abnormal stock return of −49 basis points. This loss effect is stronger in small stocks and in more important games, and is robust to methodological changes. We also document a loss effect after international cricket, rugby, and basketball games.