Rest in Peace Post-Earnings Announcement Drift
Critical Finance Review, Forthcoming
46 Pages Posted: 6 Feb 2018 Last revised: 21 Aug 2021
Date Written: March 27, 2021
Abstract
This paper revisits price formation following earnings announcements. In modern financial markets, stock prices fully reflect earnings surprises on the announcement date, leading to the disappearance of post-earnings announcement drifts (PEAD). For large stocks, PEAD have been non-existent since 2006 but has only disappeared recently for microcap stocks. PEAD remain a prevalent area of study in finance and accounting despite having largely disappeared. This paper concludes with a set of recommendations for researchers who conduct such studies to better assess the existence of PEAD and suggests future research avenues to examine price formation following earnings news.
Keywords: earnings announcements, market efficiency, price discovery, price informativeness
JEL Classification: G10, G12, G14
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation