Linguistic Diversity and Stock Trading Volume

May 14, 2013 2 Comments

Linguistic Diversity and Stock Trading Volume

Yen-Cheng Chang Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance; China Academy of Financial Research (CAFR)

Harrison G. Hong Princeton University – Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Larissa Tiedens Stanford Graduate School of Business

Bin Zhao Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance; China Academy of Financial Research (CAFR)

March 14, 2013
Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University Working Paper No. 134

Abstract: 
We test the hypothesis that the linguistic diversity of a stock’s investor base leads to more trading. Trading might be due to beliefs differing across languages or investor exposure to multiple languages leading to more trading ideas. Using stock message boards from China, which has ten languages, we measure the linguistic diversity of a stock’s investor base using a Herfindahl index of messages posted from different languages. A firm’s diversity increases in the number of languages spoken in the province where it is headquartered. Using the latter as the instrument, trading volume in a stock rises with its linguistic diversity. We then attempt to discriminate among competing mechanisms. We also show using a sample of forty-one countries that countries with more linguistic diversity have greater stock market turnover.

Filed under Research

About bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

2 Responses to Linguistic Diversity and Stock Trading Volume

  1. Related Site says:
    May 25, 2013 at 5:34 pm

    Superb Website, Carry on the excellent work. thnx!

    Reply

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