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We present evidence supporting the hypothesis that due to investor specialization and market segmentation, value-relevant information diffuses gradually in financial markets. Using the stock market as our setting, we find that (i) stocks that are in economically related supplier and customer industries cross-predict each other's returns, (ii) the magnitude of return cross-predictability declines with the number of informed investors in the market as proxied by the level of analyst coverage and institutional ownership, and (iii) changes in the stock holdings of institutional investors mirror the model trading behavior of informed investors. Copyright (c) 2010 the American Finance Association.

This article documents differences between the Q-sensitivity of investment of stand-alone firms and unrelated segments of conglomerate firms. Unrelated segments exhibit lower Q-sensitivity of investment than stand-alone firms. This fact is driven by unrelated segments of conglomerate firms that tend to invest less than stand-alone firms in high-Q industries. This finding is robust to matching on industry, year, size, age, and profitability. The differences are more pronounced in conglomerates in which top management has small ownership stakes, suggesting that agency problems explain the investment behavior of conglomerates. (JEL D21, D23, G31)