Has Ebola Infected the Market: A Contagious Reaction to a (Media) Health Care Crisis?

Abstract

We examine the impact of Ebola headline news days on media-highlightedstocks. An Ebola news day (negative or positive in nature) is associated with increasedtrading, higher share volume, higher dollar volume, and increased share turnover.OLS regressions on industry-specific portfolios reveal that airline, restaurant, andcruise ship returns reverse themselves one day after the Ebola news event, a resultthat is consistent with behavioral overreaction literature. Empirical findings could beused to prepare market participants for analogous epidemics.