The Journal of Finance

The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.

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Rational Inattention and Portfolio Selection

Published: 08/14/2007   |   DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2007.01263.x

LIXIN HUANG, HONG LIU

Costly information acquisition makes it rational for investors to obtain important economic news with only limited frequency or limited accuracy. We show that this rational inattention to important news may make investors over‐ or underinvest. In addition, the optimal trading strategy is “myopic” with respect to future news frequency and accuracy. We find that the optimal news frequency is nonmonotonic in news accuracy and investment horizon. Furthermore, when both news frequency and news accuracy are endogenized, an investor with a higher risk aversion or a longer investment horizon chooses less frequent but more accurate periodic news updates.