Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Extracting the Structure of Press Releases for Predicting Earnings Announcement Returns ArXiv ID: 2509.24254 “View on arXiv” Authors: Yuntao Wu, Ege Mert Akin, Charles Martineau, Vincent Grégoire, Andreas Veneris Abstract We examine how textual features in earnings press releases predict stock returns on earnings announcement days. Using over 138,000 press releases from 2005 to 2023, we compare traditional bag-of-words and BERT-based embeddings. We find that press release content (soft information) is as informative as earnings surprise (hard information), with FinBERT yielding the highest predictive power. Combining models enhances explanatory strength and interpretability of the content of press releases. Stock prices fully reflect the content of press releases at market open. If press releases are leaked, it offers predictive advantage. Topic analysis reveals self-serving bias in managerial narratives. Our framework supports real-time return prediction through the integration of online learning, provides interpretability and reveals the nuanced role of language in price formation. ...

CreditARF: A Framework for Corporate Credit Rating with Annual Report and Financial Feature Integration ArXiv ID: 2508.02738 “View on arXiv” Authors: Yumeng Shi, Zhongliang Yang, DiYang Lu, Yisi Wang, Yiting Zhou, Linna Zhou Abstract Corporate credit rating serves as a crucial intermediary service in the market economy, playing a key role in maintaining economic order. Existing credit rating models rely on financial metrics and deep learning. However, they often overlook insights from non-financial data, such as corporate annual reports. To address this, this paper introduces a corporate credit rating framework that integrates financial data with features extracted from annual reports using FinBERT, aiming to fully leverage the potential value of unstructured text data. In addition, we have developed a large-scale dataset, the Comprehensive Corporate Rating Dataset (CCRD), which combines both traditional financial data and textual data from annual reports. The experimental results show that the proposed method improves the accuracy of the rating predictions by 8-12%, significantly improving the effectiveness and reliability of corporate credit ratings. ...

FinAI-BERT: A Transformer-Based Model for Sentence-Level Detection of AI Disclosures in Financial Reports ArXiv ID: 2507.01991 “View on arXiv” Authors: Muhammad Bilal Zafar Abstract The proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) in financial services has prompted growing demand for tools that can systematically detect AI-related disclosures in corporate filings. While prior approaches often rely on keyword expansion or document-level classification, they fall short in granularity, interpretability, and robustness. This study introduces FinAI-BERT, a domain-adapted transformer-based language model designed to classify AI-related content at the sentence level within financial texts. The model was fine-tuned on a manually curated and balanced dataset of 1,586 sentences drawn from 669 annual reports of U.S. banks (2015 to 2023). FinAI-BERT achieved near-perfect classification performance (accuracy of 99.37 percent, F1 score of 0.993), outperforming traditional baselines such as Logistic Regression, Naive Bayes, Random Forest, and XGBoost. Interpretability was ensured through SHAP-based token attribution, while bias analysis and robustness checks confirmed the model’s stability across sentence lengths, adversarial inputs, and temporal samples. Theoretically, the study advances financial NLP by operationalizing fine-grained, theme-specific classification using transformer architectures. Practically, it offers a scalable, transparent solution for analysts, regulators, and scholars seeking to monitor the diffusion and framing of AI across financial institutions. ...

The Hype Index: an NLP-driven Measure of Market News Attention ArXiv ID: 2506.06329 “View on arXiv” Authors: Zheng Cao, Wanchaloem Wunkaew, Helyette Geman Abstract This paper introduces the Hype Index as a novel metric to quantify media attention toward large-cap equities, leveraging advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) for extracting predictive signals from financial news. Using the S&P 100 as the focus universe, we first construct a News Count-Based Hype Index, which measures relative media exposure by computing the share of news articles referencing each stock or sector. We then extend it to the Capitalization Adjusted Hype Index, adjusts for economic size by taking the ratio of a stock’s or sector’s media weight to its market capitalization weight within its industry or sector. We compute both versions of the Hype Index at the stock and sector levels, and evaluate them through multiple lenses: (1) their classification into different hype groups, (2) their associations with returns, volatility, and VIX index at various lags, (3) their signaling power for short-term market movements, and (4) their empirical properties including correlations, samplings, and trends. Our findings suggest that the Hype Index family provides a valuable set of tools for stock volatility analysis, market signaling, and NLP extensions in Finance. ...

Specialized text classification: an approach to classifying Open Banking transactions ArXiv ID: 2504.12319 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract With the introduction of the PSD2 regulation in the EU which established the Open Banking framework, a new window of opportunities has opened for banks and fintechs to explore and enrich Bank transaction descriptions with the aim of building a better understanding of customer behavior, while using this understanding to prevent fraud, reduce risks and offer more competitive and tailored services. And although the usage of natural language processing models and techniques has seen an incredible progress in various applications and domains over the past few years, custom applications based on domain-specific text corpus remain unaddressed especially in the banking sector. In this paper, we introduce a language-based Open Banking transaction classification system with a focus on the french market and french language text. The system encompasses data collection, labeling, preprocessing, modeling, and evaluation stages. Unlike previous studies that focus on general classification approaches, this system is specifically tailored to address the challenges posed by training a language model with a specialized text corpus (Banking data in the French context). By incorporating language-specific techniques and domain knowledge, the proposed system demonstrates enhanced performance and efficiency compared to generic approaches. ...

Unleashing the power of text for credit default prediction: Comparing human-written and generative AI-refined texts ArXiv ID: 2503.18029 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract This study explores the integration of a representative large language model, ChatGPT, into lending decision-making with a focus on credit default prediction. Specifically, we use ChatGPT to analyse and interpret loan assessments written by loan officers and generate refined versions of these texts. Our comparative analysis reveals significant differences between generative artificial intelligence (AI)-refined and human-written texts in terms of text length, semantic similarity, and linguistic representations. Using deep learning techniques, we show that incorporating unstructured text data, particularly ChatGPT-refined texts, alongside conventional structured data significantly enhances credit default predictions. Furthermore, we demonstrate how the contents of both human-written and ChatGPT-refined assessments contribute to the models’ prediction and show that the effect of essential words is highly context-dependent. Moreover, we find that ChatGPT’s analysis of borrower delinquency contributes the most to improving predictive accuracy. We also evaluate the business impact of the models based on human-written and ChatGPT-refined texts, and find that, in most cases, the latter yields higher profitability than the former. This study provides valuable insights into the transformative potential of generative AI in financial services. ...

Bridging Language Models and Financial Analysis ArXiv ID: 2503.22693 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract The rapid advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) have unlocked transformative possibilities in natural language processing, particularly within the financial sector. Financial data is often embedded in intricate relationships across textual content, numerical tables, and visual charts, posing challenges that traditional methods struggle to address effectively. However, the emergence of LLMs offers new pathways for processing and analyzing this multifaceted data with increased efficiency and insight. Despite the fast pace of innovation in LLM research, there remains a significant gap in their practical adoption within the finance industry, where cautious integration and long-term validation are prioritized. This disparity has led to a slower implementation of emerging LLM techniques, despite their immense potential in financial applications. As a result, many of the latest advancements in LLM technology remain underexplored or not fully utilized in this domain. This survey seeks to bridge this gap by providing a comprehensive overview of recent developments in LLM research and examining their applicability to the financial sector. Building on previous survey literature, we highlight several novel LLM methodologies, exploring their distinctive capabilities and their potential relevance to financial data analysis. By synthesizing insights from a broad range of studies, this paper aims to serve as a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners, offering direction on promising research avenues and outlining future opportunities for advancing LLM applications in finance. ...

Contrastive Similarity Learning for Market Forecasting: The ContraSim Framework ArXiv ID: 2502.16023 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract We introduce the Contrastive Similarity Space Embedding Algorithm (ContraSim), a novel framework for uncovering the global semantic relationships between daily financial headlines and market movements. ContraSim operates in two key stages: (I) Weighted Headline Augmentation, which generates augmented financial headlines along with a semantic fine-grained similarity score, and (II) Weighted Self-Supervised Contrastive Learning (WSSCL), an extended version of classical self-supervised contrastive learning that uses the similarity metric to create a refined weighted embedding space. This embedding space clusters semantically similar headlines together, facilitating deeper market insights. Empirical results demonstrate that integrating ContraSim features into financial forecasting tasks improves classification accuracy from WSJ headlines by 7%. Moreover, leveraging an information density analysis, we find that the similarity spaces constructed by ContraSim intrinsically cluster days with homogeneous market movement directions, indicating that ContraSim captures market dynamics independent of ground truth labels. Additionally, ContraSim enables the identification of historical news days that closely resemble the headlines of the current day, providing analysts with actionable insights to predict market trends by referencing analogous past events. ...

Quantifying A Firm’s AI Engagement: Constructing Objective, Data-Driven, AI Stock Indices Using 10-K Filings ArXiv ID: 2501.01763 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract Following an analysis of existing AI-related exchange-traded funds (ETFs), we reveal the selection criteria for determining which stocks qualify as AI-related are often opaque and rely on vague phrases and subjective judgments. This paper proposes a new, objective, data-driven approach using natural language processing (NLP) techniques to classify AI stocks by analyzing annual 10-K filings from 3,395 NASDAQ-listed firms between 2011 and 2023. This analysis quantifies each company’s engagement with AI through binary indicators and weighted AI scores based on the frequency and context of AI-related terms. Using these metrics, we construct four AI stock indices-the Equally Weighted AI Index (AII), the Size-Weighted AI Index (SAII), and two Time-Discounted AI Indices (TAII05 and TAII5X)-offering different perspectives on AI investment. We validate our methodology through an event study on the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, demonstrating that companies with higher AI engagement saw significantly greater positive abnormal returns, with analyses supporting the predictive power of our AI measures. Our indices perform on par with or surpass 14 existing AI-themed ETFs and the Nasdaq Composite Index in risk-return profiles, market responsiveness, and overall performance, achieving higher average daily returns and risk-adjusted metrics without increased volatility. These results suggest our NLP-based approach offers a reliable, market-responsive, and cost-effective alternative to existing AI-related ETF products. Our innovative methodology can also guide investors, asset managers, and policymakers in using corporate data to construct other thematic portfolios, contributing to a more transparent, data-driven, and competitive approach. ...

A Hype-Adjusted Probability Measure for NLP Stock Return Forecasting ArXiv ID: 2412.07587 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract This article introduces a Hype-Adjusted Probability Measure in the context of a new Natural Language Processing (NLP) approach for stock return and volatility forecasting. A novel sentiment score equation is proposed to represent the impact of intraday news on forecasting next-period stock return and volatility for selected U.S. semiconductor tickers, a very vibrant industry sector. This work improves the forecast accuracy by addressing news bias, memory, and weight, and incorporating shifts in sentiment direction. More importantly, it extends the use of the remarkable tool of change of Probability Measure developed in the finance of Asset Pricing to NLP forecasting by constructing a Hype-Adjusted Probability Measure, obtained from a redistribution of the weights in the probability space, meant to correct for excessive or insufficient news. ...