Say It at the Right Time: Publication Time of Financial News

摘要

By law, stock-listed companies must immediately disclose any information that might influence the valuation of the company in order to ensure a fair supply of information to all interested parties. However, laws and regulations do not specify clear requirements regarding the language used and the exact timing when information may be considered relevant enough for disclosure. Previous research shows that delaying bad news provides more time to adjust the language of an announcement in order to encourage a more optimistic perception. This paper investigates how the positive or negative character of news content influences the daily timing of the announcement and how the timing relates to stock performance. We find that negative messages are slightly longer than positive ones. In addition, announcements released before trading tend to have a more positive sentiment than those released during intraday trading, which may reflect a longer preparation time.