Does Release Time of Firm-Specific Announcements Influence Trade Initiation Motives?

This paper examines the impact of release time of earnings and take over announcements on motives of trade initiation. We find that investors’ initiate buy and sell (buy or sell) trades immediately before (after) earnings and takeover announcements ‘day’ announcements. High volatility and more prominent effective spread before overnight announcements indicate active informed trading, showing evidence of potential information leakage. Similarly, high volatility and less prominent effective spread before day announcements exhibit more active uninformed trading. Overall, private information (Differential information) is the likely motive for trade initiation before overnight announcements (day announcements). We suggest that day announcements are more effective than overnight announcements in controlling information leakage. Our results complement prior literature on effectiveness of continuous disclosure on the ASX.