IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jaecon/v47y2009i3p208-225.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of earnings surprises on information asymmetry

Author

Listed:
  • Brown, Stephen
  • Hillegeist, Stephen A.
  • Lo, Kin

Abstract

We examine the effect of earnings surprises on changes in information asymmetry. We hypothesize and find that asymmetry is lower (higher) in the quarter following positive (negative) earnings surprises compared to firms that meet the consensus analyst earnings forecast. The relations between earnings surprises and information asymmetry are stronger when the surprises are more likely to capture investors' attention. Examining the source of these changes, we show that decreased information search activities is the most important factor for asymmetry declining after positive surprises; for negative surprises, decreased uninformed trading plays a dominant role increasing asymmetry.

Suggested Citation

  • Brown, Stephen & Hillegeist, Stephen A. & Lo, Kin, 2009. "The effect of earnings surprises on information asymmetry," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 208-225, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:47:y:2009:i:3:p:208-225
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165-4101(08)00082-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Freeman, Rn & Tse, Sy, 1992. "A Nonlinear Model Of Security Price Responses To Unexpected Earnings," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 185-209.
    2. Atiase, Rk, 1985. "Predisclosure Information, Firm Capitalization, And Security Price Behavior Around Earnings Announcements," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 21-36.
    3. Harrison Hong & Terence Lim & Jeremy C. Stein, 2000. "Bad News Travels Slowly: Size, Analyst Coverage, and the Profitability of Momentum Strategies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(1), pages 265-295, February.
    4. David Easley & Soeren Hvidkjaer & Maureen O'Hara, 2002. "Is Information Risk a Determinant of Asset Returns?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 2185-2221, October.
    5. Frieder, Laura & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2005. "Brand Perceptions and the Market for Common Stock," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 57-85, March.
    6. Lee, Charles M C & Mucklow, Belinda & Ready, Mark J, 1993. "Spreads, Depths, and the Impact of Earnings Information: An Intraday Analysis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(2), pages 345-374.
    7. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Rajgopal, Shiva, 2005. "The economic implications of corporate financial reporting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1-3), pages 3-73, December.
    8. Kothari, S. P., 2001. "Capital markets research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 105-231, September.
    9. Bartov, Eli & Givoly, Dan & Hayn, Carla, 2002. "The rewards to meeting or beating earnings expectations," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 173-204, June.
    10. Brown, Stephen & Hillegeist, Stephen A. & Lo, Kin, 2004. "Conference calls and information asymmetry," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 343-366, September.
    11. Madhavan, Ananth & Richardson, Matthew & Roomans, Mark, 1997. "Why Do Security Prices Change? A Transaction-Level Analysis of NYSE Stocks," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(4), pages 1035-1064.
    12. Gregory S. Miller, 2002. "Earnings Performance and Discretionary Disclosure," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 173-204, March.
    13. Chen, Joseph & Hong, Harrison & Stein, Jeremy C., 2002. "Breadth of ownership and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 171-205.
    14. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1845-1876 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Mitchell, Mark L & Mulherin, J Harold, 1994. "The Impact of Public Information on the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(3), pages 923-950, July.
    16. Almazan, Andres & Brown, Keith C. & Carlson, Murray & Chapman, David A., 2004. "Why constrain your mutual fund manager?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 289-321, August.
    17. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2008. "All That Glitters: The Effect of Attention and News on the Buying Behavior of Individual and Institutional Investors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 785-818, April.
    18. Gustavo Grullon, 2004. "Advertising, Breadth of Ownership, and Liquidity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(2), pages 439-461.
    19. Ron Kasznik & Maureen F. McNichols, 2002. "Does Meeting Earnings Expectations Matter? Evidence from Analyst Forecast Revisions and Share Prices," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(3), pages 727-759, June.
    20. Easley, David & Kiefer, Nicholas M & O'Hara, Maureen, 1997. "One Day in the Life of a Very Common Stock," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(3), pages 805-835.
    21. Merton, Robert C, 1987. "A Simple Model of Capital Market Equilibrium with Incomplete Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 483-510, July.
    22. Heather E. Tookes, 2008. "Information, Trading, and Product Market Interactions: Cross‐sectional Implications of Informed Trading," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(1), pages 379-413, February.
    23. Dye, Ra, 1985. "Disclosure Of Nonproprietary Information," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 123-145.
    24. French, Kenneth R. & Roll, Richard, 1986. "Stock return variances : The arrival of information and the reaction of traders," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 5-26, September.
    25. Easley, David & O'Hara, Maureen, 1987. "Price, trade size, and information in securities markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 69-90, September.
    26. Falkenstein, Eric G, 1996. "Preferences for Stock Characteristics as Revealed by Mutual Fund Portfolio Holdings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 111-135, March.
    27. Chordia, Tarun & Roll, Richard & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2000. "Commonality in liquidity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 3-28, April.
    28. Lang, M & Lundholm, R, 1993. "Cross-Sectional Determinants Of Analyst Ratings Of Corporate Disclosures," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 246-271.
    29. Barclay, Michael J & Litzenberger, Robert H & Warner, Jerold B, 1990. "Private Information, Trading Volume, and Stock-Return Variances," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 3(2), pages 233-253.
    30. Vega, Clara, 2006. "Stock price reaction to public and private information," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 103-133, October.
    31. Benjamin C. Ayers & Robert N. Freeman, 2000. "Why Do Large Firms' Prices Anticipate Earnings Earlier than Small Firms' Prices?," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(2), pages 191-212, June.
    32. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    33. Frieder, Laura, 2008. "Investor and price response to patterns in earnings surprises," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 259-283, August.
    34. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Titman, Sheridan, 1993. "Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 65-91, March.
    35. Michael J. Fleming & Eli M. Remolona, 1999. "Price Formation and Liquidity in the U.S. Treasury Market: The Response to Public Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(5), pages 1901-1915, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jagjeev Dosanjh, 2017. "Exchange Initiatives and Market Efficiency: Evidence from the Australian Securities Exchange," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 1-2017, January-A.
    2. repec:uts:finphd:34 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Patrick J. Kelly, 2014. "Information Efficiency and Firm-Specific Return Variation," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(04), pages 1-44.
    4. Bardong, Florian & Bartram, Söhnke M. & Yadav, Pradeep K., 2005. "Informed Trading, Information Asymmetry and Pricing of Information Risk: Empirical Evidence from the NYSE," MPRA Paper 13586, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Oct 2008.
    5. Iatridis, George Emmanuel, 2016. "Financial reporting language in financial statements: Does pessimism restrict the potential for managerial opportunism?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-17.
    6. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, June.
    7. Brown, Stephen & Hillegeist, Stephen A. & Lo, Kin, 2004. "Conference calls and information asymmetry," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 343-366, September.
    8. Sadka, Ronnie, 2011. "Liquidity risk and accounting information," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 144-152.
    9. Amit Goyal, 2012. "Empirical cross-sectional asset pricing: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 26(1), pages 3-38, March.
    10. Fargher, Neil & Wee, Marvin, 2019. "The impact of Ball and Brown (1968) on generations of research," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 55-72.
    11. Karthik Balakrishnan & Mary Brooke Billings & Bryan Kelly & Alexander Ljungqvist, 2014. "Shaping Liquidity: On the Causal Effects of Voluntary Disclosure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(5), pages 2237-2278, October.
    12. Beyer, Anne & Cohen, Daniel A. & Lys, Thomas Z. & Walther, Beverly R., 2010. "The financial reporting environment: Review of the recent literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 296-343, December.
    13. Raman Kumar & Marius Popescu, 2014. "The implied intra-day probability of informed trading," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 357-371, February.
    14. Sun, Yuxin & Ibikunle, Gbenga, 2017. "Informed trading and the price impact of block trades: A high frequency trading analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 114-129.
    15. Lof, Matthijs & van Bommel, Jos, 2023. "Asymmetric information and the distribution of trading volume," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    16. Jeon, Jin Q. & Lee, Cheolwoo & Nasser, Tareque & Via, M. Tony, 2015. "Multiple lead underwriter IPOs and firm visibility," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 128-149.
    17. Matthias Bank & Martin Larch & Georg Peter, 2011. "Google search volume and its influence on liquidity and returns of German stocks," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 25(3), pages 239-264, September.
    18. Laura Xiaolei Liu & Ann E. Sherman & Yong Zhang, 2014. "The Long-Run Role of the Media: Evidence from Initial Public Offerings," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(8), pages 1945-1964, August.
    19. Vayanos, Dimitri & Wang, Jiang, 2013. "Market Liquidity—Theory and Empirical Evidence ," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1289-1361, Elsevier.
    20. Baker, Malcolm & Stein, Jeremy C., 2004. "Market liquidity as a sentiment indicator," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 271-299, June.
    21. Marco Wölfle, 2015. "Information-Based Trade in German Real Estate and Equity Markets," Risks, MDPI, vol. 3(4), pages 1-26, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:47:y:2009:i:3:p:208-225. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jae .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.