We investigate the demand for financial information during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Google search data for individual stocks, we show that the Abnormal Google Search Volume Index declined significantly between March and June of 2020. We find a similar effect around earnings announcements dates, which confirms that the demand for financial information by retail investors declined during the pandemic. Our results are indicative of potentially important consequences for information diffusion, price discovery and market efficiency under extreme uncertainty. We discuss possible explanations for these results.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 大流行期间的信息需求

我们调查了 COVID-19 大流行最初几个月对财务信息的需求。使用谷歌搜索个股数据，我们发现异常谷歌搜索量指数在 2020 年 3 月至 6 月期间显着下降。我们发现围绕收益公告日期的类似影响，这证实了散户投资者对财务信息的需求在 2020 年期间下降大流行。我们的结果表明在极端不确定性下对信息传播、价格发现和市场效率的潜在重要影响。我们讨论了对这些结果的可能解释。