A Kyle (1985) model with private information diffusion is used to examine the motivation to spread stock tips. An informed investor with limited investment capacity spreads imprecise rumors to an audience of followers. Followers trade on the advice and move the price. Due to the imprecision of the rumor, the price overshoots with positive probability. This gives the rumormonger the opportunity to trade twice: First when she receives information, then when she knows the price to be overshooting. In equilibrium, rumors are informative and both rumormongers and followers increase their profits at the expense of uninformed liquidity traders.

This paper presents an empirical test of the ‘market feedback hypothesis’, a theory suggesting that information aggregated in the IPO process is used for the firm’s investment decision. We examine the relation between post-IPO unexpected capital expenditures and feedback generated during the IPO process for 1543 IPOs between 1987 and 1995. Feedback is measured by (i) the unexpected price adjustment made at the end of the waiting period and (ii) the unexpected initial return. Consistent with the hypothesis, we find that positive feedback is followed by positive abnormal capital expenditures. A long-term event study finds no significant difference in stock returns between positive and negative feedback IPOs. This suggests that firms should not ignore market feedback as there is no evidence for a feedback related bias in post-IPO stock prices.