News or noise: Mobile internet technology and stock market activity

Arbeitspapier

Mobile internet devices reduce trading frictions and information search costs for investors, but also introduce attention-competing activities,such as social networking. We use exogenous nationwide and city-level outages of the Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) to investigate the effect of mobile internet technology on investors'information-gathering vs. attention-diverting activities. We find that trading volume and trading frequency surge by about 5% on days when mobile internet systems go dark, consistent with a greater role for devices (when not dark) in diverting the limited attention of investors away from information-gathering and trading - even when they are used by presumably more sophisticated investors.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CFR Working Paper ; No. 21-10

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness ; Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates ; Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading ; Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
• Subject: mobile technology ; investor activity ; stock market liquidity ; limited attention ; distraction

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Brown, Nerissa C. ; Elliott, W. Brooke ; Wermers, Russ ; White, Roger M.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR)
• (where): Cologne
• (when): 2021

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/250746
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET