Romain Boulland

Corporate Websites: A New Measure of Voluntary Disclosure; with Thomas Bourveau and Matthias Breuer. 

Conditionally accepted, Journal of Accounting Research

Using data from the Wayback Machine, we construct a measure of disclosure for the universe of U.S. listed firms based on the quantity of information on their website. Our measure is positively related to existing measure of disclosures and liquidity. Our measure captures not only capital-market-related but also additional information geared toward other stakeholders than investors (e.g., customers). It can be constructed for any firms, including small, private, and international firms. It can be customized to study specific research question (e.g., ESG disclosures) via textual analysis of websites. We provide open access to our measure. 

[Data and code on Github]

Speed and Expertise in Stock Picking: Older, Slower, and Wiser? with Chayawat Ornthanalai and Kent Womack.  

Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis,  2023

Provides a methodology to classify analysts on a spectrum from slow to fast. Analysts who change recommendations more slowly make recommendations that are more influential and generate better portfolio returns.  Their investment value partly derives from their ability to better interpret hard-to-assess information. 

[Slides detailing the methodology for classifying analysts], [Internet Appendix]

Grabbing Investor Attention with Limited Resources: A Study of Small Cap Firms’ Communication Channels; with Andrei Filip, Alessandro Ghio, and Luc Paugam. 

European Accounting Review,  2023

Studies communication by small cap firms on a lightly regulated market (the Alternative Investment Market). Firms use three communication channels (press releases, conference calls, social media) infrequently. However, when announcing positive earnings news, they are more likely to employ these channels, suggesting that they communicate opportunistically. The use of press releases and conference calls is associated with positive stock returns, while social media usage prior to earnings announcements is linked to subsequent stock price reversals. 

Do Investors Pay Sufficient Attention to Banks’ Unrealized Gains and Losses on Available-for-sale Securities?  with  Gerald Lobo and Luc Paugam.

European Accounting Review,  2019

Studies unrealized gains and losses on securities classified as available-for-sales (AFS). Those latent gains and losses have a sizeable impact on  equity but they are not included in earnings before their realization . As a result, they  are easily overlooked  by analysts and investors. On a sample of U.S. bank, a trading strategy that relies on public information about AFS generates an alpha of about 1.8% per month.

News Dissemination and Investor Attention; with François Degeorge and Edith Ginglinger.

Review of Finance,  2017

Studies the adoption of English-speaking wire services by continental European firms to disseminate company news. Adopting firms exhibit a stronger initial reaction to earnings surprises, a lower post earnings announcement price drift, and an increase in abnormal trading volume. Use the Transparency Directive as an exogeneous shock on the method of news dissemination. The effect of wire services on investor attention is due to the format of news (electronic and English-language), not to the increased speed of news transmission.

[Coverage in UBS Academic Research Monitor]

Announcing the Announcement; with Olivier Dessaint. 

Journal of Banking and Finance, 2017

There are significant variations in how far in advance firms announce their earnings calendar. Firms pre-announce their report dates well ahead of time when earnings are good and do it at the very last moment when earnings are bad. A trading strategy that exploits such variations yields abnormal returns of 1.5% per month.

[The paper was featured by Steve Liesman on CNBC: link to video]

Analysts’ Stickiness, Over-reaction and Drift

Revue Finance ,  2018.

Special issue in honor of Richard Thaler's Nobel prize.  A reexamination of De Bondt and Thaler (1985 ) ('Does the Stock Market Overreact?') and  Michaely, Thaler and Womack (1995) ('Price Reactions to Dividend Initiations and Omissions')  through the prism of equity analysts.  Over-reaction and under-reaction of investors to company news can be partly attributed to analysts' tendency to delay their recommendations.

• Young Researcher Award, Autorité des Marchés Financiers, 2019 

• Best paper award in Revue Finance, 2018

• Best Ph.D. prize, Cercle France-Amériques, 2015

• Best Ph.D. prize, Chancellerie des Universités de Paris, 2015

• Best thesis prize in Corporate Finance, French Finance Association, 2014

• Best Ph.D. prize of the Fondation Dauphine, 2014