Are Earnings Surprises Interpreted More Optimistically on Very Sunny Days?

Behavioral Bias in Interpreting Accounting Information

JOHN J. SHON* PING ZHOU**

Using bootstrap randomization procedures, we find that market reactions to earnings surprises are higher when earnings are announced on very sunny days in New York City. The effect exists for firms traded in New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and American Stock Exchange (AMEX) (i.e., New Yorkbased exchanges), but does not exist for firms traded on NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation). Moreover, this sunshine effect is most (least) prominent for firms that are more likely to be followed by nave (sophisticated) investors. The sunshine effect is most prevalent on unambiguously sunny days, however, and is weaker on moderately sunny days. Average bid-ask spreads are lower on sunny days relative to cloudy days, suggesting that market-makers may contribute to the effect. Lastly, we find evidence of a short-term reversal of the sunshine-induced overreaction and underreaction. Keywords: Weather; earnings surprises; behavioral bias; trading anomalies; sunshine

*Assistant Professor of Accounting Fordham University **Quantitative Investment Group Neuberger Berman We thank an anonymous referee, Daniel Bens, Donal Byard, Ilia Dichev, David Hirshleifer, Rong Huang, Peter Joos, Lisa Kramer, Ying Li, Joshua Livnat, Thomas Lys, Bharat Sarath, Lucia To, Susan Young, and seminar participants at Baruch College, the 2006 Four Schools Conference (Baruch College, Columbia University, New York University, Rutgers University), and the 2007 Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Summer Symposium for helpful comments. We are grateful for the funding of this research from the PSC-CUNY Research Grant and the Eugene M. Lang Junior Faculty Research Grant.

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1. Introduction
Several studies in the economics and finance literature have documented a positive relation between sunshine and stock returns. For instance, Saunders (1993) examines the correlation between New York City sunshine and the contemporaneous daily returns of three New Yorkbased indexes and finds that sunshine is positively related to index returns. Hirshleifer and Shumway (2003) document a similar relation for the daily weather patterns of twenty-five other international cities with each citys respective stock exchange. Motivated by a rich body of evidence in the psychology literature, they conclude: [S]unlight affects mood, and . . . people tend to evaluate future prospects more optimistically when they are in a good mood than when they are in a bad mood . . . cheery days will [therefore] boost stocks. Alternatively, sunshine may also reduce investors risk aversion, causing them to exhibit a higher tolerance for risk; this in turn would reduce the required rate of return, and therefore lead to higher stock returns. Documenting a sunshine effect in stock returns, these studies contribute to a growing body of evidence suggesting that factors unrelated to fundamental value can affect stock prices. However, at least three questions are left unanswered. First, it is unclear whether the sunshine effect arises from the markets interpretation of value-relevant economic news events, or whether it arises from value-irrelevant noise (e.g., news about a pop-culture celebrity scandal). Second, because prior studies consider only index returns, it is unclear whether the sunshine effect can exist at a firm-specific level. Lastly, if the sunshine effect exists at the firm level, a natural question that arises is whether certain firms are more susceptible to the effect than other firmsand if so, can systematic differences in the sunshine effect be ex ante predicted? To investigate these questions, we examine the market reactions to firms earnings announcements. Overall, our empirical results suggest that firm-specific earnings surprises exhibit a sunshine effectand that this sunshine effect is systematically related to proxies for investor sophistication: firm size and analyst following. Specifically, for firms trading on New Yorkbased stock exchanges (i.e., New York Stock Exchange [NYSE] or American Stock Exchange [AMEX]) during 19822004, we use bootstrap randomization procedures and find that market reactions to earnings surprises are incrementally more positive (or less negative) when conditioned on very sunny weather in New York City surrounding the earnings announcement dates. Moreover, this sunshine effect is most prominent for small-size firms and firms that are followed by a relatively small number of analysts. Results are robust to several alternative research designs and alternative specifications. Not surprisingly, the documented sunshine effect is most prevalent on unambiguously sunny days and is much weaker on moderately sunny days. In subsequent tests, we find that average bid-ask spreads are lower on sunny days relative to cloudy days, suggesting that market-makers may be contributing to this sunshine effect. Lastly, when examining postearnings announcement returns, we find evidence of a short-term reversal of the sunshine-induced overreaction (underreaction) to good (bad) earnings news.

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The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 briefly discusses the related literature. Section 3 describes the sample and presents descriptive statistics. Section 4 describes our research design, our bootstrap randomization procedures, and main empirical results. Section 5 presents robustness results. Section 6 presents results from examining bid-ask spreads. Section 7 presents results from examining postearnings announcement returns. Section 8 concludes.

2. Related Literature
2.1 Sunshine, Mood, and Information Processing A long line of empirical studies in the psychology literature documents a positive relation between sunshine and individuals moods and emotions. Persinger (1975) finds that weather variables account for 35 percent of the variance in self-reported moods on the day of evaluation; higher moods are associated with more hours of sunshine. Similarly, Howarth and Hoffman (1984) find that objectively measured mood increases as individuals are exposed to more hours of sunshine, showing that optimism increases, while anxiety and skepticism decrease. These studies draw an explicit link between sunshine and mood. Other studies find that mood can in turn affect the efficiency and bias of how individuals process information. For instance, Isen, Shalker, Clark, and Karp (1978) find that individuals in good moods make more favorable evaluations of the performance and service records of the products they own. Johnson and Tversky (1983) and Nygren et al. (1996) find that individuals in good moods tend to have more favorable assessments of future prospects and lower assessments of risk compared with those in bad moods (also see Arkes, Herren, and Isen [1988]). 2.2 Sunshine and Stock Returns Could stock markets exhibit a sunshine effect? Under standard assumptions of market efficiency, only factors that affect expected future cash flows or the discount rate can have predictable effects on market prices. Under such efficiency assumptions, there is no room for value-irrelevant factors like the days sunshine to influence a firms stock price. Yet, evidence from the psychology literature discussed above documents clear, causal links between sunshine and mood, and between mood and the interpretation of information. This implies that sunshine may affect the moods of market participants, and in turn, their interpretation of value-relevant information, and thereby, the stock price of publicly traded firms. This is consistent with the well-documented mood congruency effect, in which individuals in good moods find positive information more salient, while those in bad moods find negative information more salient; individuals are also quicker to make mood-consistent judgments (e.g., Forgas and Bower [1987]). More formally, sunshine may induce correlated shifts in beliefs (and utility functions) in cases in which individual perceptions shift uniformly toward

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higher probabilities for positive cash flows and lower probabilities for negative cash flows (or greater risk-tolerance). If markets have some imperfections, such utility or belief changes may lead to predictable effects on stock prices. Indeed, extant evidence suggests that stock markets can exhibit a sunshine effect. Saunders (1993) examines the correlation between New York City sunshine and the contemporaneous daily returns of three New Yorkbased indexes (the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and equal- and value-weighted NYSE/AMEX indexes) during 19271989. He finds that sunshine is positively related to index returns; this finding is confirmed by several later studies (e.g., Goetzmann and Zhu [2003]; Loughran and Schultz [2004]). Hirshleifer and Shumway (2003) extend Saunders original work by examining the relation between market returns and sunshine for twenty-five additional cities around the world during the 1982 1997 period. Specifically, they identify twenty-six international cities that host stock exchanges and correlate the index returns from each of these exchanges with each respective citys level of sunshine. Overall, they find that the sunshine effect is evident in several other cities/countries as well as pooled across all twenty-six countries; their results are robust to several other specifications. 2.3 Which Market Participants? If market participants geographically located in New York are optimistically biased by New York sunshine, one natural question arises: Which market participants? Two potential candidates are investors and market makers. One interpretation is that investors located in New York are the cause of the sunshine effect. Here, we adopt the view of Hirshleifer and Teoh (2003) in viewing asset prices to be determined as an equilibrium representing the aggregate of all demands and supply in the market, not solely determined by the demands of some marginal group of (geographically dispersed) investors. That is, it is not necessary for the unidentifiable marginal investor to be located in New York, but merely some subset of investors to be located there. A second potential explanation for the sunshine effect is that it is driven by the moods of market-makers physically located in New York. Consistent with this explanation, Goetzmann and Zhu (2003) find that bid-ask spreads narrow (widen) on sunny (cloudy) days. They argue that such inefficiencies are possible because market-makers do not operate in a fully competitive environment, and thus (weather-influenced) bid-ask spreads are not subject to a short-term competitive mechanism. We explicitly consider this potential explanation in our empirical tests.

3. Sample and Descriptive Statistics

Our sample and data definitions closely mimic the work of Hirshleifer and Shumway (2003). In Section 5, we also examine several alternative definitions for each of our variables.

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3.1 Sample We obtain financial information from the quarterly Compustat files (full, industrial, and research), stock return data from the daily Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) files, and analyst following and earnings forecast data from Institutional Brokerage Estimate System (I/B/E/S). The original Hirshleifer and Shumway (2003) data set examines the sunshine effect for the 19821997 period; we also include the more recent 19982004 period. Our main sample spans from 1982 to 2004 and includes the universe of 171,749 firm-quarter observations trading on the NYSE or AMEX, with necessary data on earnings, earnings announcement dates, and stock returns. We do not include firms traded on NASDAQ because NASDAQ is not a New Yorkbased exchange. 3.2 Sunshine Variable The National Climactic Data Center (NCDC) collects weather data and publishes it in their International Surface Weather Observations data set. In this data set, the variable Total Sky Coverage measures the extent to which the sky is covered by clouds. Data are collected hourly (i.e., twenty-four observations per day). The NCDC codes Total Sky Coverage to take one of four values: (1) Clear, (2) Scattered, (3) Broken, or (4) Overcast.1 Thus, Total Sky Coverage is perfectly negatively correlated with the level of sunshineClear days are sunny, while Overcast days are not sunny. To construct a measure of each days sunshine, we consider each hourly observation of Total Sky Coverage between the hours of 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. This ten-hour time frame mimics the definition used by Hirshleifer and Shumway (2003), and closely coincides with the hours that the exchanges are open for trading. For each trading day, if 100 percent of the ten hours that make up the trading day are Clear, then the day is coded as equal to one; otherwise, the day is coded as equal to zero. Though this definition is quite restrictive in requiring 100 percent of the days hours to be Clear, it is the least susceptible to researcher-induced bias in identifying a sunny day. Next, because we examine the three-day returns around earnings announcements, we define our main sunshine variable, SUNNY, as the average of the three days indicator variables. For instance, if the average Total Sky Coverage for the three days surrounding an earnings announcement is Clear, then SUNNY is equal to one. On the other hand, if only one (two) of the days surrounding an earnings announcement is Clear, then SUNNY is equal to 0.33 (0.67). In Section 5, we consider several alternative definitions and alternative windows for our SUNNY metric. For instance, we also consider less-restrictive definitions of SUNNY (e.g., 75% of the days hours to be Clear).

1. Prior to 1998, the NCDC coded the variable on a scale from 0 (Clear) to 8 (Overcast). Our data set includes observations from both periods, so we convert the old 08 scaling to the newer four-point scale using accepted conversion procedures in the literature.

TABLE 1 Descriptive Statistics and Correlations

Panel A: Descriptive statistics Variable Mean Std. Dev. 0.086 0.059 0.053 0.069 2.120 12,068.5 0.000 0.073 0.000 0.094 0.000 13.6 0.000 0.006 0.000 0.026 0.000 84.3 0.000 0.000 0.002 0.001 0.000 376.0 0.000 0.000 0.008 0.029 1.000 1,463.0 5% 25% 50% 75% 95% 0.333 0.000 0.062 0.103 5.000 10,254.7

SUNNY NEG_DNI POS_DNI AR ANALYST SIZE

0.021 0.016 0.015 0.003 0.845 2,743.0

Panel B: Pearson and Spearman correlations (above and below diagonal) SUNNY NEG_DNI POS_DNI AR 0.001 0.768 0.084 0.000 0.088 0.000 0.023 0.000 0.041 0.000 0.043 0.000 0.005 0.031 ANALYST 0.004 0.124 0.001 0.723 0.076 0.000

SIZE 0.038 0.000 0.187 0.000 0.157 0.000 0.008 0.001 0.412 0.000

SUNNY p-value NEG_DNI p-value POS_DNI p-value AR p-value ANALYST p-value SIZE p-value 0.837 0.000 0.166 0.000 0.045 0.000 0.171 0.000 0.182 0.000 0.025 0.000 0.015 0.000 0.024 0.000 0.030 0.000 0.479 0.000

0.006 0.009 0.002 0.489 0.002 0.463 0.032 0.000 0.043 0.000

Note: The sample is comprised of 171,749 firm-quarter observations trading on the NYSE and AMEX from 1982 to 2004. SUNNY is the three-day average of a daily indicator variable equal to one when Total Sky Coverage is Clear for 100 percent of the days ten hours between 6am-4pm, equal to zero otherwise. By definition, SUNNY [0, 0.33, 0.67, 1]. DNI is the seasonally-adjusted quarterly change in net income, scaled by prior-quarter market value of equity. POS_DNI is equal to DNI when DNI is positive, and is equal to zero otherwise. NEG_DNI is equal to DNI when DNI is negative, and is equal to zero otherwise. AR is the three-day firm-specific raw returns on earnings announcement date minus the value-weight market returns over the same period. ANALYST is the number of analysts that make quarterly earnings forecasts during the quarter, where the quarter is defined as the period between the day after prior-quarter earnings announcement to the day of the current-quarter earnings announcement. SIZE is prior-quarter market value of equity. The top and bottom 0.5 percent of observations for DNI are winsorized. Pearson and Spearman correlations are presented above and below the diagonal, respectively.

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3.3 Returns and Earnings Returns data are from the daily CRSP files. Abnormal returns, AR, is defined as the three-day firm-specific raw returns surrounding earnings announcement date minus the value-weight market returns over the same period. We consider equal-weight market adjustments, as well as decile-size adjusted returns; we also consider one-day and two-day windows to mimic similar windows for our alternative definitions of SUNNY. Earnings surprises, DNI, are defined as the seasonally adjusted quarterly change in net income, scaled by prior-quarter market value of equity. To mitigate the influence of outliers, the top and bottom 0.5 percent of DNI observations are winsorized. We also consider the change in core earnings (i.e., excluding special items, income from discontinued operations, extraordinary items), as well as using prior-quarter total assets as a scalar. (Using analysts earnings forecast errors as a proxy for earnings surprise merits a lengthier discussion and is discussed in Section 5.) Because the prediction for the interaction of earnings surprise with sunshine is dependent on the direction of the earnings surprise, we bifurcate DNI into positive and negative surprises, POS_DNI and NEG_DNI, respectively. We define POS_DNI (NEG_DNI) as equal to DNI when DNI is positive (negative), and equal to zero otherwise. 3.4 Descriptive Statistics Panel A of Table 1 provides descriptive statistics. As discussed in Section 3.2, SUNNY is defined as the average of the three days indicator variables, and therefore takes on one of four values (0, 0.33, 0.67, or 1) depending on what proportion of the three days are perfectly Clear. Panel A reveals that the mean SUNNY is 0.021; however, this statistic does not mean that 2.1 percent of the sample is perfectly sunny. The ninety-fifth percentile observation for SUNNY is 0.33, which means that, for at least 5 percent of the sample, at least one of the three days (1/30.33) surrounding the earnings announcement date exhibits perfectly Clear skies. For most of the three-day announcement windows, New York City skies are rarely perfectly sunny. For earnings surprises, the mean POS_DNI (NEG_DNI) is 0.015 (0.016). Mean abnormal returns, AR, is 0.003. Panel B of Table 1 provides Pearson and Spearman correlations between SUNNY and other relevant variables. SUNNY is not highly correlated with any of the firm characteristics.

4. Main Empirical Results

4.1 Bootstrap Randomization Procedure To mitigate the potential clustering of observations on SUNNY days, we use a bootstrap randomization procedure to estimate the statistical significance of our estimated coefficients. Therefore, the t-statistics that we report in all of our

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empirical tests (except bid-ask spread and postannouncement return tests) are bootstrap t-statistics. The randomization procedure is performed as follows. (1) For the main, original sample, we estimate our model using standard ordinary least squares (OLS) procedures to obtain original parameter estimates. (2) We recreate a random sample with the same number of observations as the original sample by randomly selecting observations (with replacement) from the original sample. (3) For this random sample, we estimate our model using OLS procedures; save the parameter estimates. (4) We repeat steps (2) and (3) 1,000 times, creating 1,000 random samples and estimating our model 1,000 times. This yields a distribution of 1,000 estimated coefficients for each of the independent variables of the model. (5) Finally, we compute the bootstrap t-statistic for each coefficient as the original parameter estimate (from step (1) above) divided by the standard deviation of the 1,000 estimated coefficients. This bootstrap t-statistic is reported throughout our tables. 4.2 Pooled Specification Our main empirical test is a simple modification of the regressions used in Saunders (1993) and Hirshleifer and Shumway (2003) to include earnings surprises and their interactions with sunshine. Alternatively, the regressions can be viewed as a modification of the returns-on-earnings regressions used in the accounting literature (e.g., Kothari [2001]) to include sunshines interaction with earnings surprises. The significant difference between the current study and prior studies that examine the sunshine effect is that they consider daily market index returns for all trading days, while we consider firm-specific returns for only days on which earnings are announced. Because earnings announcements are regularly occurring economic events that receive widespread attention, they are arguably least vulnerable to investor irrationality, and hence, least likely to exhibit a sunshine effect.2 In this respect, we view our research as a conservative litmus test of whether sunshine affects the interpretation of value-relevant information in general. The model is as follows:

Definitions for each of the variables are provided in Sections 3.2 and 3.3. As discussed in Section 4.1, the estimated parameters we report in our tables are from standard OLS procedures. However, the reported t-statistics are calculated from bootstrap randomization procedures.
2. Also, earnings announcements are not clustered in calendar time (e.g. Kothari [2001]) and are less susceptible to incorrectly specified models of expected returns (e.g., Brown and Warner [1985]).

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Our main focus is on the coefficients for the two interaction terms, SUNNY *POS_DNI and SUNNY *NEG_DNI. Specifically, if market reactions to earnings surprises exhibit a sunshine effect, then the coefficient for the SUNNY *POS_DNI interaction will be positive, suggesting that positive earnings changes exhibit incrementally more positive market returns on sunny days. Similarly, the coefficient for the SUNNY *NEG_DNI interaction will be negative, suggesting that negative earnings changes exhibit incrementally less negative returns on sunny days. The sunshine effect may be asymmetric (i.e., exists for positive earnings changes, but not negative ones, or vice versa); but absent sufficient ex ante reasons for expecting such asymmetries, we leave this possibility as an empirical question. 4.3 Pooled Results We report our main, pooled results in Table 2. Both the dependent variable, AR, and the independent variable, SUNNY, are defined over three-day windows

TABLE 2 OLS Estimates of Regressing Abnormal Returns on Earnings Surprises, SUNNY, and Interaction Terms for Pooled Sample (Bootstrap t-statistics)
Event Window (1,1) (0,1) (1,0) (0) SUNNY* NEG_DNI 0.110 (1.94) 0.071 (0.95) 0.035 (0.74) 0.016 (1.01) SUNNY* POS_DNI 0.130 (2.14) 0.135 (2.04) 0.123 (1.32) 0.100 (1.13)

Intercept 0.002 (13.58) 0.001 (9.36) 0.002 (13.01) 0.001 (8.26)

SUNNY 0.003 (1.65) 0.000 (0.28) 0.002 (1.47) 0.001 (0.71)

NEG_DNI 0.093 (15.51) 0.070 (13.11) 0.060 (12.52) 0.037 (9.63)

POS_DNI 0.103 (18.45) 0.072 (13.37) 0.083 (18.93) 0.053 (14.13)

Adj. R2 0.014 0.010 0.012 0.007

Note: This table presents results from OLS regressions of abnormal returns (AR) on SUNNY, NEG_DNI, POS_DNI, and interaction terms for the sample of 171,699 firm-quarter observations. Four event windows are presented (where 0 is the day of the earnings announcement): (1,1) is a three-day window, (0,1) and (1,0) are both two-day windows, and (0) is a one-day window. For the three-day window, SUNNY is the three-day average of a daily indicator variable equal to one when Total Sky Coverage is Clear for 100 percent of the days ten hours between 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., equal to zero otherwise. By definition, SUNNY [0, 0.33, 0.67, 1]. DNI is the seasonally-adjusted quarterly change in net income, scaled by priorquarter market value of equity. POS_DNI is equal to DNI when DNI is positive, and is equal to zero otherwise. NEG_DNI is equal to DNI when DNI is negative, and is equal to zero otherwise. Abnormal returns are the three-day firm-specific raw returns on earnings announcement date minus the value-weight market returns over the same period. Definitions for SUNNY and abnormal returns are adjusted accordingly for two-day and one-day windows. t-Statistics (provided in parentheses) are calculated from a bootstrap randomization procedure on 1,000 randomly generated samples. Refer to Section 4.1 for details.

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around the earnings announcement date. We also present results for two-day and one-day windows. For the three-day window specification, we find that the coefficient on SUNNY *POS_DNI is significantly positive (0.130, t 2.14) and the coefficient on SUNNY *NEG_DNI is significantly negative (0.110, t 1.94). This suggests that positive (negative) earnings surprises on SUNNY days are incrementally more positive (less negative). To gauge the economic significance of these coefficients, consider the 0.130 coefficient for the SUNNY *POS_DNI interaction term with the 0.103 coefficient for the unconditional POS_DNI term. Comparing these two coefficients suggests that the average market reaction to one unit of positive earnings surprise is more than doubled when conditioned on a SUNNY 1 observation (0.130/0.103 126%). However, SUNNY 1 observationsthree days surrounding earnings announcements, where each day has 100 percent of its ten consecutive trading hours as perfectly Clearare rare. Indeed, the most common non-zero SUNNY observation is SUNNY 0.33, where only one of the three days is 100 percent Clear. Using this more-common value of SUNNY, the average market reaction to one unit of positive earnings surprise is still more than 40 percent higher when conditioned on SUNNY (0.130*0.33/ 0.103 42%). Thus, the sunshine effect appears to exhibit some economic significance. However, results for the other windows are weaker, so results should be interpreted with caution. Hereafter, as is standard practice in the literature, we use the three-day window because it is mostly likely to fully capture the markets reaction to earnings surprises. Untabulated results for the other windows are qualitatively similar throughout all of our tests. In later sections, we consider several alternative research designs. 4.4 Cross-Sectional Specification The second goal of our study is to test whether the sunshine effect systematically varies with levels of investor sophistication. This investigation contributes to the existing literature by documenting whether there is predictable cross-sectional variation in the sunshine effect. These cross-sectional tests also buttress our main pooled results because, if the sunshine effect is a result of random chance, we would not expect the effect to systematically vary. Kim and Verrecchia (1994) argue that sophisticated investors are able to earn higher returns from trading on earnings news because they have a superior ability to interpret the implications of public disclosures. Sophisticated investors exhibit superior information-processing capabilities and, in the context of our study, are therefore less susceptible to allowing sunshine to creep into their ve investors are more susceptiassessment of earnings surprises. Conversely, na ble to the whim of their sunshine-induced emotions and moods. Put simply, less (more) sophisticated investors rely less (more) on value-relevant information and more (less) on sunshine-induced moods. Following Hong, Lim, and Stein (2000), we use firm size and analyst following as proxies for investor sophistication. Firms that are larger (smaller) in size or have a higher (lower) analyst following

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are more (less) likely to be heavily followed by sophisticated investors (e.g., Atiase [1985]; Hand [1990]; Walther [1997]). SIZE is defined as priorquarter market value of equity. ANALYST is defined as the number of analysts that make quarterly earnings forecasts during the quarter. We create ranked portfolios based on SIZE and ANALYST, then estimate our main model separately for each rank portfolio. For SIZE, we create three portfolios: S_SIZE, M_SIZE, and B_SIZE. The S_SIZE portfolio contains firms with firm size less than $100 million, M_SIZE contains firms with firm size between $100 million and $1 billion, and B_SIZE contains firms with firm size greater than $1 billion.3 For ANALYST, we create four portfolios: 0_ANALYST contains firms with zero analyst following, L_ANALYST contains firms with one or two analyst following(s), M_ANALYST contains firms with three to five analyst followings, and H_ANALYST contains firms with six or more analyst followings.4

4.5 Cross-Sectional Results We report results from cross-sectional tests in Table 3. Because our goal is to examine whether the sunshine effect is more prominent among firms that are ve investors, we pay particular attention to more likely to be followed by na whether the coefficients for the interaction terms are statistically significant for the smaller size and lower analyst following portfolios. In Panel A of Table 3, we find the coefficients on the interaction terms are statistically significant for the 0_ANALYST portfolio, but statistically insignificant for the other ANALYST portfolios. Specifically, for the 0_ANALYST portfolio, the coefficient on SUNNY *POS_DNI is significantly positive (0.113, t 2.00) and the coefficient on SUNNY *NEG_DNI is significantly negative (0.109, t 1.98). In Panel B of Table 3, for the S_SIZE portfolio, the coefficient on SUNNY*POS_DNI is significantly positive (0.118, t 1.82) and the coefficient on SUNNY *NEG_DNI is significantly negative (0.127, t 1.94). All other interaction terms in the other SIZE portfolios are statistically insignificant. Assuming that ANALYST and SIZE are adequate proxies for investor sophistication, the results in Table 3 suggest that less (more) sophisticated investors rely relatively more (less) on sunshine-induced moods.

3. These portfolios closely mimic three equal-weighted SIZE portfolios of 52,846 observations each. The cutoffs for the equal-weighted portfolios are S_SIZE ($0$144), M_SIZE ($144 $903), and B_SIZE $903. Results are qualitatively similar using the equal-weighted portfolios. 4. The distribution of ANALYST is substantially non-normal: 72 percent of the observations have zero ANALYST. Of the remaining 28 percent with non-zero ANALYST, the distribution is as follows: 39 percent with one analyst, 21 percent with two analysts, 13 percent with three analysts, 13 percent with four to five analysts, and 14 percent with more than six analysts.

TABLE 3

OLS Estimates of Regressing Abnormal Returns on Earnings Surprises, SUNNY, and Interaction Terms for Cross-sectional Samples (Bootstrap t-statistics)

Panel A: Analyst following portfolios SUNNY NEG_DNI POS_DNI SUNNY* NEG_DNI SUNNY* POS_DNI Adj. R2 n

Portfolio

Intercept

0_ANALYST

L_ANALYST

M_ANALYST

H_ANALYST

0.002 (9.66) 0.003 (7.05) 0.003 (5.51) 0.004 (3.74)

0.002 (0.94) 0.005 (1.33) 0.005 (1.01) 0.008 (0.52) 0.096 (16.01) 0.060 (1.66) 0.070 (1.97) 0.098 (1.63) 0.108 (17.81) 0.084 (4.69) 0.069 (1.99) 0.052 (1.18) 0.113 (2.00) 0.214 (1.06) 0.297 (0.78) 0.314 (1.46)

0.109 (1.98) 0.133 (0.75) 0.297 (0.37) 0.234 (0.26)

0.017 124,111 0.004 28,775 0.004 12,259 0.005 6,536

Panel B: Firm size portfolios

L_SIZE

M_SIZE

H_SIZE

0.003 (9.43) 0.002 (7.17) 0.002 (9.58)

0.001 (0.64) 0.005 (1.26) 0.004 (1.50) 0.095 (12.15) 0.121 (9.93) 0.033 (2.26) 0.114 (15.21) 0.071 (7.87) 0.038 (4.02)

0.127 (1.94) 0.102 (1.53) 0.102 (0.83)

0.118 (1.82) 0.082 (0.79) 0.232 (1.37)

0.022 57,464 0.009 62,129 0.001 52,094

Note: This table presents results from OLS regressions of abnormal returns (AR) on SUNNY, NEG_DNI, POS_DNI, and interaction terms. Portfolios are created based upon proxies for investor sophistication and the main model is estimated separately for each portfolio. SUNNY is the three-day average of a daily indicator variable equal to one when Total Sky Coverage is Clear for 100 percent of the days ten hours between 6am-4pm, equal to zero otherwise. By definition, SUNNY [0, 0.33, 0.67, 1]. DNI is the seasonally-adjusted quarterly change in net income, scaled by prior-quarter market value of equity. POS_DNI is equal to DNI when DNI is positive, and is equal to zero otherwise. NEG_DNI is equal to DNI when DNI is negative, and is equal to zero otherwise. Abnormal returns are the three-day firm-specific raw returns on earnings announcement date minus the value-weight market returns over the same period. ANALYST is the number of analysts that make quarterly earnings forecasts during the quarter, where the quarter is defined as the period between the day after prior-quarter earnings announcement to the day of the current-quarter earnings announcement. 0_ANALYST contains all firms with zero ANALYST, L_ANALYST contains all firms with one or two ANALYST, M_ANALYST contains all firms with three or five ANALYST, and H_ANALYST contains all firms with more than five ANALYST. SIZE is prior-quarter market value of equity. S_SIZE contains all firms with SIZE less than $100 million, M_SIZE contains all firms with SIZE between $100 million and $1 billion, and B_SIZE contains all firms with SIZE greater than $1 billion. t-Statistics (provided in parentheses) are calculated from a bootstrap randomization procedure on 1,000 randomly generated samples. Refer to Section 4.1 for details.

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5. Robustness Tests
In this section, we consider alternative research designs and empirical specifications. Appendix A summarizes these additional tests.

5.1 Sunny Days versus Cloudy Days Matched Sample We consider a matched sample of observations that include earnings announcements on only non-zero SUNNY days or days that are similarly defined as non-zero Cloudy (i.e., where 100% of the days hours are Overcast). This essentially purges the sample of any ambiguous, mixed sunny/cloudy days and therefore considers only extremely sunny and extremely cloudy days. Trombley (1997) states that: This is an intuitive choice and, without prior analysis of the data, might be expected to give the greatest power in detecting a weather effect if such an effect exists. If there is concern about measurement error produced by the subjective nature of weather observation, a comparison based on two points on each end of the range . . . may be reasonable. In Table 4, we present results for this matched sample; all reported t-statistics are bootstrapped. Overall, the results further corroborate our main findings. For instance, for the full sample in Panel A, the coefficient on SUNNY *POS_DNI is significantly positive (0.161, t 2.34) and the coefficient on SUNNY *NEG_DNI is significantly negative (0.125, t 1.71). Results are qualitatively similar for the ANALYST and SIZE portfolios; however, the SUNNY*NEG_DNI coefficients in these portfolios are less statistically significant.

5.2 Firm and Earnings Matched Sample To control for potential correlated omitted variables and other documented cross-sectional differences in earnings-related market reactions (e.g., differences in earnings persistence), we create a matched sample where we use each firm as its own control. Here, our goal is to isolate the effect of sunshine as a treatment by considering a firm-matched control sample not exposed to the treatment. For each earnings announcement made on a non-zero SUNNY day, we randomly select a matching earnings announcement made by the same firm on a zero SUNNY day; we also match on the direction of the earnings surprise (i.e., positive versus negative). We present results in Table 5; all reported t-statistics are bootstrapped. We find that the coefficients on the interaction terms are statistically significant for the full sample as well as for the 0_ANALYST and S_SIZE portfolios. For instance, for the full sample in Panel A, we find that the coefficient on SUNNY *POS_DNI is significantly positive (0.262, t 3.11) and that the coefficient on SUNNY *NEG_DNI is significantly negative (0.206, t 2.56).

TABLE 4

OLS Estimates of Regressing Abnormal Returns on Earnings Surprises, SUNNY, and Interaction Terms for SUNNY versus CLOUDY Matched Sample (Bootstrap t-statistics)

Panel A: Pooled sample SUNNY 0.003 (1.57) 0.099 (9.64) 0.091 (9.20) 0.161 (2.34) 0.125 (1.71) NEG_DNI POS_DNI SUNNY* NEG_DNI SUNNY* POS_DNI Adj. R2 n 0.015 64,166

Intercept

0.002 (7.72)

Panel B: Analyst following portfolios

0_ANALYST

L_ANALYST

M_ANALYST

H_ANALYST

0.002 (6.50) 0.003 (2.72) 0.004 (3.48) 0.003 (1.48)

0.002 (1.09) 0.003 (0.81) 0.008 (0.98) 0.003 (0.29) 0.105 (10.59) 0.050 (0.49) 0.078 (1.18) 0.029 (0.77) 0.092 (8.70) 0.129 (3.17) 0.024 (0.74) 0.019 (0.08)

0.132 (1.84) 0.105 (0.35) 0.278 (0.37) 0.142 (0.73)

0.153 (2.21) 0.083 (0.50) 0.429 (1.02) 0.413 (1.60)

0.018 47,241 0.005 10,355 0.004 4,359 0.002 2,193

Panel C: Firm size portfolios

L_SIZE

M_SIZE

H_SIZE

0.004 (5.37) 0.002 (3.40) 0.003 (5.44)

0.002 (0.63) 0.004 (0.85) 0.004 (1.45) 0.103 (8.14) 0.121 (5.71) 0.025 (1.16)

0.095 (7.35) 0.078 (4.90) 0.047 (2.64)

0.148 (1.50) 0.103 (1.33) 0.122 (0.88)

0.168 (2.03) 0.064 (0.65) 0.209 (1.36)

0.022 22,682 0.010 22,971 0.001 18,501

Note: This table presents results from OLS regressions of abnormal returns (AR) on SUNNY, NEG_DNI, POS_DNI, and interaction terms for a matched sample of observations that include earnings announcements on only non-zero SUNNY days or days that are similarly defined as non-zero CLOUDY (i.e., where 100% of the days hours are Overcast). Portfolios are created based on proxies for investor sophistication and the main model is estimated separately for each portfolio. t-Statistics (provided in parentheses) are calculated from a bootstrap randomization procedure on 1,000 randomly generated samples. Refer to Section 4.1 for details. See Table 3 for variable definitions and portfolio construction details.

TABLE 5

OLS Estimates of Regressing Abnormal Returns on Earnings Surprises, SUNNY, and Interaction Terms for Firm- and Earnings-Matched Sample (Bootstrap t-statistics)

Panel A: Pooled sample SUNNY 0.003 (1.42) 0.130 (6.08) 0.052 (3.58) 0.262 (3.11) 0.206 (2.56) NEG_DNI POS_DNI SUNNY* NEG_DNI SUNNY* POS_DNI Adj. R2 n 0.020 20,214

Intercept

0.003 (3.55)

Panel B: Analyst following portfolios

0_ANALYST

L_ANALYST

M_ANALYST

H_ANALYST

0.002 (1.79) 0.005 (3.26) 0.002 (1.64) 0.002 (0.66)

0.001 (0.34) 0.010 (2.00) 0.003 (0.83) 0.001 (0.10) 0.138 (6.42) 0.018 (0.21) 0.105 (2.61) 0.154 (1.24) 0.056 (3.82) 0.016 (0.76) 0.105 (1.98) 0.089 (0.66)

0.219 (2.55) 0.007 (0.21) 0.191 (0.61) 0.406 (0.76)

0.249 (2.85) 0.501 (2.50) 0.192 (0.55) 0.217 (1.05)

0.024 14,385 0.001 3,235 0.010 1,558 0.014 1,018

Panel C: Firm size portfolios

L_SIZE

M_SIZE

H_SIZE

0.001 (0.14) 0.004 (3.08) 0.003 (3.47) 0.011 (1.20) 0.011 (1.99) 0.005 (1.76) 0.121 (4.73) 0.188 (2.64) 0.060 (0.24)

0.064 (3.39) 0.064 (2.22) 0.013 (0.56)

0.194 (1.89) 0.285 (1.51) 0.331 (1.13)

0.248 (2.40) 0.103 (0.88) 0.300 (1.36)

0.029 7,078 0.017 6,814 0.001 6,310

Note: This table presents results from OLS regressions of abnormal returns (AR) on SUNNY, NEG_DNI, POS_DNI, and interaction terms for a matched sample where each firm is used as its own control. For each earnings announcement made on a non-zero SUNNY day, we randomly select a matching earnings announcement made by the same firm on SUNNY0 day; we also match on the direction of the earnings surprise (i.e., positive vs. negative). Portfolios are created based on proxies for investor sophistication and the main model is estimated separately for each portfolio. t-Statistics (provided in parentheses) are calculated from a bootstrap randomization procedure on 1,000 randomly generated samples. Refer to Section 4.1 for details. See Table 3 for variable definitions and portfolio construction details.

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5.3 Deseasonalized SUNNY Sunshine is highly seasonal. For instance, in New York City, October, February, and March are the three calendar months with the greatest number of 100 percent Clear days. Many seasonal patterns have been identified in stock return data (e.g., Keim [1983]). To remove any potential seasonal effects, we deseasonalize our SUNNY variable. Following Hirshleifer and Shumway (2003), we first compute the mean daily SUNNY of the six days surrounding the event date from all sample years; we then subtract this mean SUNNY from the event days SUNNY.5 This mean-adjusted, deseasonalized sunshine metric attempts to measure the days weather surprise. Untabulated results reveal that results for this deseasonalized sunshine variable further corroborate our main findings. For instance, for the full sample, the coefficient on SUNNY *POS_DNI is significantly positive (0.131, t 1.90) and the coefficient on SUNNY *NEG_DNI is significantly negative (0.106, t 1.88). Results are similarly significant for the coefficients on both the interaction terms for the 0_ANALYST portfolio and the S_SIZE portfolio. 5.4 Less Restrictive Definitions of SUNNY In the tests thus far, we require Total Sky Coverage to be Clear for 100 percent of the trading days hours for the days indicator variable to be equal to one. As Trombley (1997) states, this definition is an intuitive choice that creates the most unambiguous case of a sunny day and is arguably least susceptible to measurement error produced by the subjective nature of weather observation (i.e., researcher-induced bias).6 However, since only 5.55 percent of our sample exhibits non-zero values of SUNNY, this definition may be viewed as overly restrictive. We reexamine our main model using two less-restrictive definitions: where 75 percent or 50 percent of the trading days hours are required to be Clear. Untabulated results reveal that the relaxed 75 percent (50%) requirement increases the number of observations that have non-zero SUNNY to 12.4 percent (21%) of the sample. However, these relaxed definitions inevitably introduce more noise into the definition of sunshine and therefore reduce the power of our empirical tests. Indeed, untabulated results reveal that the sunshine effect is weaker under these relaxed conditions; although the direction of the coefficients is consistent with predictions, rarely is statistical significance better than the 20 percent level.
5. For example, the deseasonalized SUNNY for April 27, 2004, equals the SUNNY of April 27, 2004, minus the average SUNNY of April 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, and 30 from all sample years (1982 2004). Although this method increases comparability with Hirshleifer and Shumway, it suffers from a look-ahead bias. 6. Trombley states that [t]his is an intuitive choice and, without prior analysis of the data, might be expected to give the greatest power in detecting a weather effect if such an effect exists. If there is concern about measurement error produced by the subjective nature of weather observation, a comparison based on two points on each end of the range . . . may be reasonable (1997).

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Next, we reexamine our main model using the continuous Total Sky Coverage variable. As discussed in Section 3.2, Total Sky Coverage can take one of four values. We define a new variable TSC on a 03 scale, where TSC 0 if Overcast, TSC 1 if Broken, TSC 2 if Scattered, and TSC 3 if Clear. We then use TSC in lieu of SUNNY as our main weather variable. Untabulated results reveal that the sunshine effect is weaker when using this alternative definition. Specifically, the coefficient on TSC*POS_DNI is significantly positive (0.008, t 2.26), but the coefficient on TSC*NEG_DNI is statistically insignificant (0.001, t 0.15). In the cross-sectional tests, for the 0_ANALYST portfolio, the coefficient on TSC*POS_DNI is significantly positive (0.008, t 2.28) and the coefficient on TSC*NEG_DNI is insignificant (0.001, t 0.10). For the S_SIZE portfolio, the coefficient on TSC*POS_DNI is significantly positive (0.007, t 1.82) and the coefficient on TSC*NEG_DNI is insignificant. 5.5 Alternative Definition of Earnings Surprise: Analyst Forecast Errors Analysts forecast errors of earnings are largely considered to be more accurate proxies of earnings surprises than time-series earnings changes (e.g., Brown and Rozeff [1978]; Kothari [2001]). We therefore reexamine our results using analysts forecast errors as our proxy for earnings surprise. However, these forecast errors can be computed only for the subsample of firms that have an analyst following. The catch-22 is that our cross-sectional predictions suggest that firms with analyst following (i.e., those more likely to be followed by sophisticated investors) are precisely the firms that should not exhibit a strong sunshine effect. Consistent with this discussion, untabulated results reveal that the sunshine effect does not exist when we define earnings surprise using analysts forecast errors. We interpret these results to be evidence consistent with our cross-sectional predictions. 5.6 Other Robustness Tests We perform several other untabulated robustness tests to ensure that our results are not sensitive to our research design choices. We originally valueweight market-adjusted returns; we reexamine our results using equal-weight adjustments, as well as decile-size adjustments. We reexamine our results using winsorized abnormal returns to ensure that influential observations are not driving our results. We originally scale earnings changes by prior-period market value of equity; we reexamine our results scaling by prior-period total assets. We originally define earnings changes using net income; we reexamine our results using core earnings changes (i.e., excluding special items, income from discontinued operations, extraordinary items). We include fixed season effects (spring, summer, fall, winter), fixed month effects, and day of week effects. We also control for ANALYST and SIZE (in the full as well as investor sophistication portfolios). None of these alternative specifications affect the tenor of our results.

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6. Bid-Ask Spreads: Moods of Market-Makers

Goetzmann and Zhu (2003) argue that the sunshine effect is driven by the moods of market-makers physically located in New York. Consistent with their predictions, they find that bid-ask spreads narrow (widen) on sunny (cloudy) days. To consider this possibility, we first compute each days bid-ask spread, scaled by the average of the closing bid and ask prices. We define SPREAD as the mean bid-ask spread for the three-day window around the earnings announcement date. We assign each observation into one of the four SUNNY portfolios (SUNNY [0, 0.33, 0.67, 1]), and compute the mean SPREAD for each SUNNY portfolio. Results are reported in Table 6. We find that the mean SPREAD monotonically decreases across sunnier portfolios. For instance, the SUNNY 0 portfolio exhibits a SPREAD of 0.0371, while the SUNNY 0.33 portfolio exhibits a SPREAD of 0.00351; the difference in means is statistically significant (t 8.88). The difference in SPREAD between the SUNNY 0 and SUNNY 1 portfolios is 0.0042 (t 2.99). This suggests that mean bid-ask spreads are lower on sunnier days and that the sunshine effect may partially be driven by the moods of market-makers physically located in New York. In Section 3.1, we described the sample selection process to include NYSE and AMEX firms, but not NASDAQ firms. The NYSE and AMEX are exchanges that are both physically (geographically) located in New York City, while NASDAQ is not. In untabulated results, we estimate our tests for NASDAQ firms and find that the sunshine effect does not exist for these firms. Because NASDAQ does not necessarily have market-makers located in New

TABLE 6 Mean Bid-ask Spreads of Each SUNNY Portfolio

Portfolio SUNNY 0 SUNNY 0.33 SUNNY 0.67 SUNNY 1 Difference between SUNNY 0 and SUNNY 1 SPREAD 0.0371 0.0020 0.0351 0.0004 0.0347 0.0018 0.0329 0.0042 (2.99) (1.15) (0.54) (8.88) Difference t-Stat.

Note: This table presents the mean bid-ask spreads for each SUNNY portfolio. Each days bid-ask spread is scaled by the average of the closing bid and ask prices. SPREAD is defined as the mean bid-ask spread for the three-day window around earnings announcement. Each observation is then assigned to a SUNNY portfolio. Differences between the mean SPREAD of each adjacent SUNNY portfolio are provided in the column labeled Difference. The t-statistic for the difference in means is provided in the column labeled t-Stat.

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York City, this finding further supports the notion that the mood of market makers may be contributing to the sunshine effect.

7. PostEarnings Announcement Abnormal Returns

Our evidence suggests that, when firms announce earnings on SUNNY days, market participants overreact to positive earnings news and underreact to negative earnings news. In Table 7, we present the postearnings announcement abnormal returns for each SUNNY portfolio. Here, our goal is to examine whether we can observe a reversal in returns over a subsequent short-term window. We define CAR as the cumulative value-weight market-adjusted returns for the three-day window immediately after earnings announcements (i.e., 2 to 4). We separately report the results for positive and negative earnings surprises. We find that the average postearnings announcement returns generally decrease in each successive SUNNY portfoliothat is, postearnings announcement returns tend to be negative and lower in the SUNNY 1 portfolios than in the SUNNY 0 portfolios. This pattern is particularly true for the POSDNI portfolio. For instance, the average postearnings announcement CAR for firms that report POSDNI on

TABLE 7 Mean Post Earnings Announcement Abnormal Returns of Each SUNNY Portfolio
NEGDNI Diff 0.00060 SUNNY 0.33 SUNNY 0.67 SUNNY 1 Difference between SUNNY 0 and SUNNY 1 0.00080 0.00280 0.00200 0.01000 0.01200 (1.41) 0.01700 (1.27) 0.00200 0.01500 (3.68) POSDNI Diff

Portfolio SUNNY 0

CAR 0.00020

t-Stat. (0.84)

CAR 0.00070

t-Stat.

0.00030 0.00040 0.00240

(0.58) (1.23)

0.01220

(1.91)

0.01770

(5.29)

Note: This table presents the postearnings announcement abnormal returns for each firm-quarter earnings announcement. CAR is defined as the cumulative value-weight market-adjusted returns for the three days after the earnings announcement window; that is, (2,4) window. Each observation is first assigned into a NEGDNI or POSDNI portfolio, where DNI is the seasonally-adjusted quarterly change in net income, scaled by prior-quarter market value of equity. Observations are then assigned to one of four SUNNY portfolios, where SUNNY [0, 0.33, 0.67, 1]. The mean CAR is computed for each DNI-SUNNY portfolio. Mean CARs are presented in the columns labeled CAR. The differences between the mean CARs of each adjacent SUNNY portfolio are provided in the column labeled Diff. The t-statistic for the difference in means is provided in the column labeled t-Stat.

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SUNNY 0 days is 0.00070, while it is 0.01700 for similar firms that report on SUNNY 1 days; this difference is statistically significant (t 5.29). Moreover, the differences are economically meaningful: over the three-day period, a 1.22 percent difference for NEGDNI firms, and a 1.77 percent difference for POSDNI firms. We caution, however, that such informational inefficiencies do not necessarily yield implementable arbitrage opportunities. Indeed, Hirshleifer and Shumway (2003) are careful to point out that even fairly modest transaction costs could do away with any likely profits from sunshine-based trading (e.g., Rubinstein [2001]).7 The contribution of our study does not rely on documenting profitable trading strategies per se. Rather, regardless of the existence of arbitrage opportunities, our main goal is to provide further evidence that psychological factors may play a role in the efficiency with which prices reflect publicly available, value-relevant information.

8. Conclusion
For firms traded in New Yorkbased exchanges, market reactions to earnings surprises are higher when earnings are announced on perfectly sunny days in New York City. Moreover, this sunshine effect is more prominent for firms that are small in size or have low analyst following. Not surprisingly, however, the documented sunshine effect is most prevalent on unambiguously sunny days and is much weaker on moderately sunny days. Average bid-ask spreads are lower on sunny days relative to cloudy days, suggesting that market-makers may be contributing to the sunshine effect. Lastly, there is some evidence of a short-term reversal of the sunshine-induced overreaction and underreaction. We contribute to the literature in a number of ways. First, we are the first to provide evidence that the sunshine effect can exist for economic news events rather than value-irrelevant noise (e.g., news about a pop-culture celebrity scandal). This suggests that other economic events could be susceptible to a sunshine effect. Second, we provide evidence that the sunshine effect can exist at the firm level. This suggests that the phenomenon is not merely a market-level, macroeconomic phenomenon. Third, we identify cross-sectional variation in the sunshine effect. This suggests that future researchers may be able to uncover other types of characteristics that make a firm more susceptible to a sunshine effect. Conceivably, such work could lead to further fine-tuning and, ultimately, profitable trading strategies based on weather patterns. Because earnings announcements are regularly occurring economic events that receive widespread attention, we view our work as a contribution to the growing body of evidence that documents complex associations between accounting information and stock prices. For instance, evidence from Schrand and Walther (2000) suggests that managers may engage in selective emphasis of more-favorable prior-period benchmarksfactors that have no direct impact on the fundamental
7. Markets are minimally rational if prices are not necessarily set as if investors are rational, but transaction costs are sufficiently high, preventing rational investors from exploiting such opportunities (e.g., Rubinstein [2001]).

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APPENDIX A Summary of Alternative Tests Performed

Alternative definitions Alternative windows for sunshine/ returns Less restrictive definitions of sunshine Continuous measure of sunshine (TSC) Analysts earnings forecast errors Core earnings changes Equal-weight market-adjust returns Decile-size-adjust returns Winsorize returns for outliers Prior-quarter total assets scaling Alternative research designs Sunny-day-versus-cloudy-day matched sample Firm- and earnings-matched sample Alternative explanations Seasonal adjustment for SUNNY Fixed season effect Fixed month effects Fixed day of week effects Controls for ANALYST and SIZE Other tests Bid-ask spreads NASDAQ firms Postearnings announcement returns Section 6.1 Section 6.2 Section 6.3 Table 6 Available from authors Table 7 Section Section Section Section Section 5.3 5.6 5.6 5.6 5.6 Available Available Available Available Available from from from from from authors authors authors authors authors Section 5.1 Section 5.2 Table 4 Table 5 Section Section 4.1.1 Section Section Section Section Section Section Section Section 5.4 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.6 5.6 5.6 5.6 Table Table 2 Available Available Available Available Available Available Available Available from from from from from from from from authors authors authors authors authors authors authors authors

value of a firmand that such selective emphasis can affect investors reactions to earnings surprises (similarly, Hirst and Hopkins [1998]; Bowen, Davis, and Matsumoto [2005]).8 In the same vein, we show that the level of sunshine may have a discernible effect on market prices. In documenting this sunshine effect, our hope is to open up new and creative avenues of future research.9

8. Similarly, it is possible that managers suspect the existence of a sunshine effect and attempt to strategically time the release of their earnings announcements to occur on SUNNY days. 9. We are not suggesting that researchers start data-mining expeditions on other weather patterns. Hirshleifer and Shumway argue that the sunshine effect is not subject to the criticism of data snooping. Exploration of whether this pattern exists was specifically stimulated by the psychological hypothesisthe hypothesis was not selected to match a known pattern. . . . Such a pattern, if it exists, has a psychological explanation but no plausible rational explanation. This contrasts with many well-known patterns of stock returns for which psychological and rational explanations are currently competing (2003, 1010).

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