Complexity Aversion When Seeking Alpha

Does textual complexity affect attention and market outcomes? I conduct a global field experiment with Seeking Alpha that randomly assigns to investors different titles for the same news article. Investors are less likely to open the articles when titles are more complex---scored quantitatively and by humans. For example, a one-standard-deviation increase in length leads to 10% fewer views. Complexity is more off-putting for less-sophisticated investors, when investors are more distracted, and when news is likely less surprising. Exploiting an arbitrary tie-breaking rule, I find that complexity impacts markets---lowering announcement turnover and volatility and resulting in temporary price underreactions