Abstract

This study investigates the impact that the dissemination, the semantic aspects of the news published between 2000 and 2013 in "The Wall Street Journal" (WSJ) and the attention level of investors produce on stock prices of companies involved in spin-off deals. The results of the empirical analysis developed through an event study on a sample of 179 listed companies demonstrate that: i) prominent newspapers can influence stock trends without even providing any new information; ii) publication of rumours is found to generate a supplementary-return in the symmetrical windows; iii) companies implementing spin-off operations and experimenting high investor attention levels demonstrate substantial first-day returns and under-performance of stocks in the long-term; iv) when it comes to the semantic aspect of the news, CAAR proves to be amplified around the announcement date when the press «speaks positively» of the operation.