Good News Early - Bad News Late: Evidence from the Alternative Investment Market (AIM)

Abstract

We examine whether early/late reporting firms are characterized by variables such as size, liquidity, bankruptcy risk and reporting lag history. The most important predictor of the reporting lag is the lag ranking observed in the previous year. Early firms have a lower bid-ask spread than late firms and early announcements are more likely to contain unexpected good news. There is also evidence that pre-disclosure information asymmetry is higher in early rather than late firms. Conversely, late announcements are characterised by bad news and the stock returns of late firms underperform early and control firms both before and after the announcement.