The impact of attention on investors : evidence from the Stock Exchange of Thailand

This paper examines the influence of attention on three investor groups: individual investors, institutional investors and foreign investors in the setting of the Thai stock market between 2011 and 2014. To measure the impact of attention I sort stocks by their extreme daily returns and by their abnormal trading volume on a certain day. Purchasing stocks that grabbed ones attention earlier is a way to deal with the problem of having to choose from thousands of stocks that one could potentially buy. I test and confirm the hypothesis that individual investors are net buyers of attention grabbing stocks. Furthermore I hypothesize that attention affects different investor groups to a different degree in their buying behavior. I confirm that individual investors engage the most in attention driven buying behavior. Surprisingly I find strong evidence for attention driven buying behavior for institutional investors as well. Foreign investors merely show tendencies for purchases driven by attention grabbing stocks.