earticle

영어

The Internet has become one of the most powerful platforms for doing business, with an explosion of information posted on the Internet. Not surprisingly, an increasing number of investors consult the Internet in search of information associated with their portfolio choices. Given that the Internet plays a crucial role in the formation of stock prices, we examine the impact of Internet searches on price discoveries with their differential impacts through the lens of return comovements. We find that a firm’s return moves together with market returns and tends to persist to some extent coupled with the two categories of ambiguities with respect to a firm’s return, resulting from market-wide uncertainties and/or its intangible attributes. Our analyses of IT firms with high ambiguities suggest that investors are less efficient in impounding the changes in intangible assets into price than those in market-wide uncertainties. Investors accordingly tend to opt to obtain market-wide information first and then shift their attention to firm-specific information when new information arrives. Our cross- sectional analyses suggest a negative association between information searches on the Internet and return comovements as expected. Interestingly, we find that the impact of Internet searches on comovements is amplified when investors are faced with difficulties in assessing a firm’s value resulting from market-wide uncertainties and its intangible attributes. In sum, our study provides valuable insights as to the informational role of Internet searches in stock markets and their interplay with ambiguities in assessing stock prices.