English Earnings Conference Calls and Foreign Investors in the Korean Stock Market*

Abstract Based on a sample of Korean public firms in the period 2002–2022, we document that foreign ownership and trading volumes increase in subsequent quarters when firms provide earnings calls in English. Stock price synchronicity also increases in subsequent quarters. We re‐examine the effect of English language earnings calls using a sample including only those firms providing English language earnings calls and a matching sample, and find a similar effect. We show that cumulative abnormal returns around call releases are higher when the Questions and Answers sections of the calls exhibit more positive sentiment. Our final analysis reveals that the positive effect of call sentiment is more pronounced within firms with higher foreign ownership.