Do hurricanes cause storm on the stock market? The case of US energy companies

Abstract

We examine the effect of hurricanes on the stock market, specifically on US energy companies. Unlike in the previous literature, we identify the timing and severity of hurricane events using the attention they receive online. Using our improved measure of hurricane events, we estimate dynamic common correlated effect panel models with daily and intraday stock returns over the last two decades and find that stock returns increase and stock volatility decreases following hurricanes. We argue that these results fit well with the energy supply and demand shock explanation and the limited attention hypothesis.