Ma, RMarshall, BRNguyen, NHVisaltanachoti, N2026-05-252026-05-252026-01-19Accounting and Finance, ISSN: 0810-5391 (Print); 1467-629X (Online), Wiley. doi: 10.1111/acfi.701740810-53911467-629Xhttp://hdl.handle.net/10292/21225We estimate the effects of different news events on New Zealand stock returns. Our results indicate that local news, such as announcements from the New Zealand Central Bank interest rate changes (official cash rate) and company earnings reports, generally has a greater impact than international news. However, U.S. Federal Open Market Committee interest rate announcements also exert an important impact. There are no consistent differences in the impact of news on stocks with different cross-sectional characteristics, such as small and large, value and growth, and low- and high-leverage stocks.© 2026 The Author(s). Accounting & Finance published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/38 Economics3502 Banking, Finance and Investment3801 Applied Economics35 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services1402 Applied Economics1501 Accounting, Auditing and Accountability1502 Banking, Finance and InvestmentAccounting3501 Accounting, auditing and accountabilityearningseconomic policy uncertaintyinternational newslocal newsmacroeconomic announcementsstock returnstechnical factorsJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1111/acfi.70174