Pre-Disclosure Information Asymmetry and Information Content as a Means of Explaining Trading Volume Responses to Interim Earnings Announcements in a Thinly Traded Stock Market

Abstract

This study contains empirical findings regarding the effect of interim earnings announcements on investors' trading behavior. The aim of the paper is to empirically investigate whether the trading volume reaction to an interim earnings announcement is associated with the information content of the announcement and the existence of pre-disclosure information asymmetry in the Finnish stock market. The reason for using Finnish data is to establish whether findings from the US in respect of explaining volume inducement around an information event also hold in thin security markets. Pre-disclosure information asymmetry is proxied by the range in analysts' earnings forecasts. Information content is proxied by beta-adjusted returns and the divergence in reported EPS from analysts' mean EPS forecast. The data consist of 118 interim earnings announcements released by 21 firms traded on the Helsinki Stock Exchange (HSE) between 1992 and 1996. It was found that the trading volume reaction is positively associated with the information content of an announcement and also to some extent with the level of pre-disclosure information asymmetry. These results are in line with Kim and Verrecchia's theoretical trading volume proposition and with empirical findings in the US markets. Thus, previous findings produced in more developed stock markets with respect to volume generation around earnings announcements also seem to be applicable to thin markets. However, the significance levels are lower than in similar US studies and the association between positive and negative news is slightly asymmetric.

Note: This is a description of the paper and not the actual abstract.

Keywords: Volume, earnings announcements, information asymmetry, analysts' earnings forecasts, Helsinki Stock Exchange

JEL Classification: D82, G14, G29, M41