Technology Rhetoric and Institutional Ownership

Abstract

We compare actual R&D spend with the managerial rhetoric around technology and innovation contained within corporate disclosures of US-listed firms. We find that, whilst actual R&D spend and patents do not entice institutional investors to increase their stock holdings, firms that espouse technology and innovation in their corporate disclosures are quite successful in drawing in short-term horizon investors. Yet, such firms are more prone to future sudden idiosyncratic stock price crashes. Although it may seem that talk of technology and innovation represents a self-interested managerial effort to retain investors’ expectations, this would not explain why so many short-term horizon investors opt for such stocks in the face of persistent evidence of adverse market performance outcomes. As suggested by the economics of expectation, investors may become reluctant to timely face up to bad news in terms of unfulfilled technology and innovation outcomes, a behaviour that can hype investors’ expectations and overinflate stock prices for long periods. Eventually, when such investors become disillusioned by unjustifiable expectations that enables them to better discern the firm’s true state of economic fundamentals, the sudden and abrupt decline in their expectations triggers extreme firm-specific left-tail outcomes.