Influence of Semantic and Thematic Features of Conference Calls on Company Performance

Last few years, non-financial information, that is disclosed by the management of public companies on a voluntary basis through CEO Letters, non-financial reports, conference calls, and investor days, has become increasingly popular and significant in developed and emerging markets. The disclosure of such information becomes the essential and key way to create the attractiveness and image of the company for investors. This paper investigates the significance of the influence of semantic (emotionality, tone) and thematic features (topic, text coherence and complexity) of the conference call on the future market performance of the company and the recommendation of analysts to the stock. The empirical results illustrate a significant impact of the text characteristics of the conference call on the cumulative abnormal return (3, 14, 30 day interval), and the absence of the impact on the change of the share mean recommendation by analysts.