Bayesian learning provides the core concept of information processing in financial markets. Typically, it is assumed that market participants know perfectly the quality of released news. However, in practice, news' precision is rarely disclosed. Therefore, we extend standard Bayesian learning,...

There is an extensive literature showing that R&D intensities and increases are positively related to firm performance, but there is little research on the valuation of R&D reductions. This paper contributes to the literature by examining the long-term performance following significant R&D...

This paper examines the relation between firm-level implied volatility skew and the likelihood of extreme negative events, or crash risk. I show that volatility skew identifies which firms are likely to experience crashes, but only in short-window earnings announcement periods. The predictive...

We study the impact of the arrival of macroeconomic news on the informational and noise-driven components in high-frequency quote processes and their conditional variances. We decompose bid and ask returns into a common ("efficient return") factor and two market-side-specific components...

Dividend reductions have long been considered a "last resort" action for firm managers. Managerial reluctance to reduce dividends emanates from the view that dividend drops signal managerial pessimism regarding future earnings. Contrary to expectations, studies show that earnings rebound...

When an event is anticipated, the firm's stock return around the announcement of the event may have an inconsistent sign: a positive sign around negative news, or vice versa. We attempt to quantify the frequency of this problem, first with a brief mathematical model and simulation, then with...

We examine the effect of options trading volume on the stock price response to earnings announcements over the period 1996–2007. Contrary to prior studies, we find no significant difference in the immediate stock price response to earnings information announcements between firms with listed...

Our study examines whether behavioural theories can explain post-earnings announcement drift (i.e., earnings momentum) in the Spanish market. In particular, we test models proposed by Daniel, Hirshleifer, and Subrahmanyan (1998), Hong and Stein (1999), and Barberis, Shleifer, and Vishny (1998)....

We examine the association between accounting quality, which is used as a proxy for firm information risk, and the behavior of the term structure of implied option volatility around earnings announcements. By employing a large sample of US firms having options traded on their equity during...

We test the proposition in Johnstone (2016) that new information may lead to higher, rather than lower, uncertainty about firms' future payoffs. Based on the Bayesian rule, we hypothesize earnings news that is inconsistent with investors' prior belief will lead to higher market uncertainty....