Stock Markets and Spam
Writing with Laura Freider of Purdue University, in 2008 Zittrain published, Spam Works: Evidence from Stock Touts and Corresponding Market Activity, in the Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal to document the manipulation of stock prices via spam e-mail. They found evidence that "stocks experience a significantly positive return on days prior to heavy touting via spam" and that "prolific spamming greatly affects the trading volume of a targeted stock". Apart from transaction costs, in some circumstances the spammer earned over 4% while the average investor who bought on the day of receipt of the spam would lose more than 5% if they sold two days later. Frieder said in 2006 that she knew of no other explanation for their results, but that people do follow the stock tips in their spam e-mail.
Read more about this topic: Jonathan Zittrain
Famous quotes containing the words stock and/or markets:
“Death and life were not
Till man made up the whole,
Made lock, stock and barrel
Out of his bitter soul,”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“When the great markets by the sea shut fast
All that calm Sunday that goes on and on:
When even lovers find their peace at last,
And Earth is but a star, that once had shone.”
—James Elroy Flecker (1884–1919)