Abstract

This paper studies the predictability of Google search volume index, CEO reputation, and firm reputation, on the stock performance of seasoned equity offering within a one-year period. The results have shown that the Google search volume indexes searched according to both firm name and firm ticker can significantly predict the stock performance in the first 3 months and the performance from the 8th month to one year. After classifying the search volume indexes by their magnitude, the predictability of the search volume index varies according to the index magnitude and the search content. Among the CEO reputation proxies, only CEO tenure shows significant but fragmented predictability. Among the three independent variables studied in this paper, firm reputation has the most protracted and significant predictability on the post-SEO performance.