Market Madness? The Case of Mad Money

Posted: 16 Dec 2005 | Last revised: 7 Nov 2010

Joseph Engelberg
University of California, San Diego (UCSD) – Rady School of Management

Caroline Sasseville
Kellogg School of Management – Department of Finance

Jared Williams
University of South Florida

Abstract

We use the popular television show Mad Money hosted by Jim Cramer to test theories of attention and limits to arbitrage. Stock recommendations on Mad Money constitute attention shocks to a large audience of individual traders. We find that stock recommendations lead to large overnight returns which subsequently reverse over the next few months. The spike-reversal pattern is strongest among small, illiquid stocks that are hard-to-arbitrage. Using daily Nielsen ratings as a direct measure of attention, we find the overnight return is strongest when high income viewership is high. We also find weak price effects among sell recommendations. Taken together, the evidence supports the retail attention hypothesis of Barber and Odean (2008) and illustrates the potential role of media in generating mispricing.

 

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