The wealth of information from quarterly financial reports in Malaysia

摘要

This study aimed to contribute to the Bursa Malaysia and other professional bodies in Malaysia by developing a quarterly report disclosure checklist, for the preparation of quarterly reports. In addition, it also examined the wealth of information of quarterly financial reports in Malaysia in terms of share price performance at the time of disclosure. Specifically, this study examined whether the level of disclosure of quarterly reports and the changes in earnings from previous quarter affect firm share price performance. The study used a final sample comprising of 304 quarterly report announcements from top 76 companies according to market capitalisation and listed on the main board of Bursa Malaysia for the financial year ending 2005. An event study methodology is employed to examine the information content of quarterly financial report announcements. The result of this study revealed that public listed companies in Malaysia have extensively disclosed information in the quarterly reports as per the requirements. However, this study failed to find a significant positive relationship between the announcement of quarterly reports and the level of disclosure with firm share price performance. The only hypothesis supported was the positive relationship between the changes in earnings and firm share price performance. This indicates that investors look directly in the earnings data in the quarterly reports rather than other disclosures.