Information or Noise? The Role of Investor Sentiment, Attention, and Analyst Coverage in Stock Price Synchronicity

We investigate the impact of stock-specific investor sentiment, investor attention, and analyst coverage on stock price synchronicity in the Indian market. We develop a stock-level investor sentiment index using nine sentiment proxies. The results show that investor sentiment has a negative impact on price synchronicity, supporting the notion that lower stock co-movement is associated with more noise rather than firm-specific information in the presence of stock-specific investor sentiment. Using the Google Search Volume Index as a measure of investor attention, we find that investor attention positively impacts the stock price synchronicity. Moreover, our findings reveal that the negative (positive) impact of investor sentiment (attention) on stock price synchronicity lessens (improves) the effect of analyst coverage on price synchronicity. JEL Codes: G02, G14, G12