Timing Information, Information Asymmetry, and Trading Volume

Investigating various corporate announcements and abnormal return days, I observe that around 2% of daily trading volume decreases only before scheduled earnings announcements. This empirical pattern is robust across different specifications and periods. Also, proxies of ex ante information asymmetry are consistently related to the trading volume only before scheduled earnings announcements. The timing information existing only in a scheduled announcement seems to have an important role in trading volume dynamics near an announcement. However, the market makers, observing order flows, behave appropriately even without timing information and increase the price sensitivities before all kinds of announcements. These results shed light on the role of a newly observed variable, timing information of an announcement, in investors’ trading decision under information asymmetry in the stock market. JEL classification: G14