
This paper studies the relation between the media coverage of funds and their future performance. We classify news items about equity hedge funds over 1999--2008 into three source groups: General newspapers, Specialized magazines, and Corporate Communication. Examining post-exclusive-coverage performance, we document that Corporate-covered funds outperform and General-covered funds underperform, with a performance difference of about 11% annually. Applying a textual analysis to news items, we find that sentiment-related biases do not explain the inter-source return spread. Nevertheless, investor fund flow does not differentially respond to source-based information. The results suggest that the source-based return spread may reflect the extensive costs of processing information across thousands of media sources to generate alpha.
| selected citations These citations are derived from selected sources. This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | 8 | |
| popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network. | Average | |
| influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Average | |
| impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network. | Average |
