Bad News and Differential Market Reactions to Announcements of Earlier-Quarters Versus Fourth-Quarter Earnings
研究证券市场对低于预期的盈利公告（坏消息）的反应是否因公告所在财季（前季度 vs 第四季度）而异，基于会计准则允许经理在中期报告中利用全年预期，可能延迟坏消息至第四季度。
In this study, we investigate whether the security market reaction to the announcement of lower than expected earnings (bad news earnings) is dependent on the fiscal quarter of the announcement (earlier quarters versus fourth quarter). Such dependence could arise from the provisions of generally accepted accounting principles which allow extensive use of managers' fiscal-year expectations when formulating interim cost estimates. These provisions provide managers with a potential means of delaying bad news earnings until the fourth-quarter earnings announcement. Support for the view that managers delay the release of bad news is provided by recent research on the timing of information releases (e.g., the release of bad earnings news, bad dividend news, and bad nonearnings news).' Since managers have the means (through generally accepted accounting principles for interim reporting) and the tendency (as suggested by the empirical evidence on the timing of information releases) to delay bad news, it seems plausible to hypothesize a larger security