UNE Business School welcomes Professor Alex Frino to our 2018 Seminar Series

Does Social Media Cause Stock Price Volatility? A Re-Examination

When: 11.00am – 12.30pm, Tuesday 16 January

Where: UNE SMART Region Incubator, EBL Building (W42)

A seminal paper by Antweiler and Frank (2004) based on data for stocks listed on exchanges in the US concludes that the frequency of social media posts for a company is related to its stock’s price volatility.  In this presentation, we will re-examine this relationship using Australian data which enables us to implement strong controls for company-released information because of the strict continuous-disclosure reporting regime implemented in Australia.  We also examine the impact of social media posts for a company on its exchange-listed option implied volatility – a market whose average investor is more likely to be dominated by better informed traders.

Alex Frino is Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Global Strategy) at University of Wollongong (UOW). Professor Frino is a distinguished economist who fosters the interaction of business with academe. He is an alumnus of UOW and Cambridge University, and is also a former Fulbright Scholar. He is one of the best published finance academics in the world with over 100 papers in leading scholarly journals. Professor Frino has won over $10 million in national competitive research funding and is frequently cited by the major mainstream global press. He was previously Chief Executive Officer of the Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre Limited – a $100 million research installation funded by the Australian Federal Government and partnering with 20 major global financial corporations.

Professor Frino has held visiting academic positions at leading Universities in Italy, New Zealand, the UK and the United States. He has also held positions with leading financial market organisations including the Sydney Futures Exchange, Credit Suisse and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the US. He has held a number of senior leadership positions at Australian Universities including as Head of School, dean and deputy vice -chancellor level. He is regularly called upon to act as an independent expert witness in major Australian court cases and has acted as a consultant to many large Australian listed companies.