We show that a firm's one-year-ahead capital investments and inventory increase (decrease) when peer firms' MD&A narratives become more optimistic (pessimistic). This finding is driven by firms that access peer firms' 10-K filings within seven days of filing, and remains after controlling for...

The release of earnings information has become less timely in recent years partly because firms increasingly disclose earnings concurrently with their periodic reports (e.g., 10-Ks, 10-Qs). We examine whether firms use voluntary disclosure to mitigate the negative economic consequences of less...

We examine the relation between earnings information content and the use of trust words, such as "character," "ethics," and "honest," in the MD&A section of 10-K. We find that earnings announcements of firms using trust words have lower information content than earnings announcements of firms...