Firm-specific volatility of stock returns, the credibility of management forecasts, and media coverage: Evidence from Japanese firms

This paper explores the determinants of firm-specific informativeness of the stock price in terms of corporate disclosure quality and the quantity of public information by using Japanese data. In our empirical framework, we examine how the credibility of disclosure and media coverage are associated with the firm-specific volatility of stock returns. The results indicate that both greater accuracy of management forecasts and greater total media coverage contribute to the incorporation of firm-specific information in the stock price. Furthermore, for earnings-related news, the media reporting leads to less firm-specific volatility. Finally, an improvement in forecast accuracy enhances the marginal effect of media coverage of the earnings news toward reflecting firm-specific information. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.