We survey the textual sentiment literature, comparing and contrasting the various information sources, content analysis methods, and empirical models that have been used to date. We summarize the important and influential findings about how textual sentiment impacts on individual, firm-level and...

Using proprietary data on millions of trades by retail investors, we provide the first large-scale evidence that retail short selling predicts negative stock returns. A portfolio that mimics weekly retail shorting earns an annualized risk-adjusted return of 9%. The predictive ability of retail...

The existing literature treats the short side (i.e., short selling) and long side of hedge fund trading (i.e., changes in holdings) independently. The two sides, however, complement each other in revealing important economic motivations of trading: opposite changes in short interest and hedge...

Using multiple short sale measures, we examine the predictive power of short sales for future stock returns in 38 countries from July 2006 to December 2014. We find that the days-to-cover ratio and utilization ratio measures have the most robust predictive power for future stock returns in the...

Regulator-required public disclosures of net short positions do not provide a profitable investment signal for UK stocks. While long-short (zero initial outlay) portfolios based on this signal usually make a profit on average, it is rarely statistically significant in either gross or...

In a noteworthy recent paper, Mitts (2020) presents empirical evidence that published attacks on publicly-traded companies by certain presumed short-sellers generate “V”-shaped pricing patterns, whereby targeted companies’ stock prices fall precipitously when a negative report is...

We study which factors in terms of trading environment and trader characteristics determine individual information acquisition in experimental asset markets. Traders with larger endowments, existing inconclusive information, lower risk aversion, and less experience in financial markets tend to...