Much recent work in strategy and popular discussion suggests that an excessive focus on "managing the numbers" --delivering quarterly earnings at the expense of longer term investments--makes it difficult for firms to make the investments necessary to build competitive advantage. "Short termism"...

This paper shows that during episodes of market turmoil 13F institutional investors with short trading horizons sell their stockholdings to a larger extent than 13F institutional investors with longer trading horizons. This creates price pressure for stocks mostly held by short horizon...