Seminar (Dept. of Finance)

Theme：Social Ties, Comovements, and Predictable Returns

Speaker：Lin Peng (Krell Chair Professor of Finance, Baruch College)

Time：2022-05-06 15:00

Address：Online Meeting

Language：English

ABSTRACT:

We examine the relation between the social ties between firms’ headquarters locations and comovements between their fundamentals and stock returns. Our evidence indicates that firms in the same industry with socially connected locations exhibit co-movement in fundamentals and stock returns that exceed those without socially connected locations. However, the stock returns reflect the location information with a lag. To exploit this lagged relationship, we form portfolios that buy (sell) stocks when their socially-weighted industry peer returns in the previous month is high (low). The value-weighted version of this portfolio generates a monthly alpha of 84 basis points. Social peer firm returns also predict firms’ future earnings surprises, analysts’ forecast errors, and earnings announcement returns. Further evidence indicates that the mispricing is stronger for low-visibility firms and for firms located outside of industry

clusters, and that the effect is not subsumed by other sources of return predictability.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY:

Professor Lin Peng is a visiting Professor and the Director of Research at the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Economics and a Fellow at Darwin College. She is also the Krell Chair Professor in Finance at Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, the City University of New York (on leave). Professor Peng has taught investment analysis, fixed income analysis, market microstructure, and financial market frictions at the undergraduate, MBA, and doctoral levels.

Professor Peng’s diverse research interest covers the area of behavioral finance, social networks, FinTech, market structure, and ESG and corporate governance. She has examined optimal executive compensation design with price manipulation, the effects of investors’ limited attention on asset prices, the role of liquidity and liquidity shocks, and the impact of market structure and the role of financial intermediaries on price efficiency and liquidity. Her research has been published in leading economics and finance journals including American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Review of Finance, Journal of Financial Intermediation, and Journal of Financial Markets. Her paper on executive compensation and earnings manipulation was published as the lead article by the Journal of Finance. Her research has won Best Paper Awards at the International Conference on Smart Finance and the Chinese Finance Association Meetings.

Prof. Peng is an associate editor for the Journal of Empirical Finance and Financial Management, and an editorial board member of the Financial Management Association Survey and Synthesis Series. She has presented her papers at numerous conferences and academic institutions. She is a recipient of many research grants and awards, which include the UNPRI research grant, Eugene-Lang junior faculty research fellowship, the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance Research Award, Professional Staff Congress – City University of New York Research Award, and Wasserman Summer Research Award. She won many faculty recognition awards for research and teaching excellence. Her work has been featured by media outlets such as Reuters and Institutional Investor.

Professor Peng holds an M.S. from Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. in Finance from Duke University. She was a visiting professor at Columbia University, Princeton University, Peking University, Rutgers University, and University of International Business and Economics.