Tom Scott and Nafiz Fahad will share the results of their study investigating the interplay between announcement readability, stock message board activities, and stock price synchronicity using HotCopper data, Australia's largest message board site regulated under Regulatory Guidance 162.

Using announcement specific views and discussions at HotCopper, they have documented that announcements' length and readability affect stock message board activities, and this association is more pronounced for nonperiodic announcements than periodic announcements.

They have also found that aggregated crowd discussions at the regulated platform lower stock price synchronicity, and such association is more pronounced among firms with less readable and lengthy announcements. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of the regulated crowd information in facilitating more firm-specific information to incorporate into the stock price for firms with less readable announcements.

This seminar is part of the School of Accounting and Commercial Law Seminar Series.

Speaker biographies

Tom Scott is an Associate Professor of Accounting at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT). His research focuses on examining the intended and unintended consequences of changes in accounting and auditing rules and the usefulness of accounting information. He has published in several academic journals such as Accounting and Finance, International Journal of Auditing, Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics, Australian Journal of Management among others, and his research has received best paper awards, local media attention, and been presented at IASB/AASB research forums. Tom is currently President (NZ) of the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ).

Nafiz Fahad is a third-year PhD student in Accounting at Auckland University of Technology (AUT). His doctoral thesis examines the investors’ use of alternative information channels to interpret less readable corporate disclosures. He is the awardee of AUT Vice-Chancellors Doctoral scholarship 2019. Nafiz has been working as a tutor and a research assistant at AUT. He has published in journals including the Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics. Before joining AUT, he worked as a lecturer in Finance at Independent University, Bangladesh.