Do the Words Matter? An Analysis of the Linguistic Sentiment of Earnings Conference Calls and Abnormal Stock Returns in Brazilian Companies

Abstract

In finance and accounting literature, different aspects are presented as possible factors related to stock returns. More recently, studies have been dedicated to analyzing the potential influence of the tone and sentiment of corporate reports, newspaper articles, press releases, and investor message boards on stock prices. Thus, based on assumptions of Legitimacy Theory, we investigate whether cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) on the stocks of Brazilian listed companies are associated with the linguistic sentiment of quarterly earnings conference calls. Using a sample of 78 observations related to the conference calls of 24 companies listed in the Novo Mercado segment in 2016-2017, we measured CAR using the market model and the linguistic sentiment of earnings conference calls using IBM's Watson Natural Language Understanding platform. An analysis of the results of statistical tests such as descriptive results, correlation matrix, and correspondence analysis enables it to be inferred that, in general, there is a positive association between cumulative abnormal returns and the optimism sentiment of quarterly conference calls. Thus, it is conjectured the possibility that the speeches made by managers in conference calls legitimize company performance in the market, by altering the perception of investors in the stock market and leading to implications for the value of the stocks traded.