Consumer attention and stock returns.

We investigate whether consumers attention measured by Google searches for company’s names and brands can predict stock returns, volatility and trading volume for smartphone and sporting goods manufacturers. Existing research has utilized Google searches mainly as a measure of investor attention (searches for tickers), while we consider two measures of consumer attention: Google searches for company names and brands. We do not find either of these two attention measures to be related to stock returns or volatility. On the other hand, increased attention predicts decreased trading volume in the subsequent week, no matter whether we considered brand or company searches. We further investigate sporting goods companies and smartphone companies separately and find that the conclusions remain similar