Abstract: This paper exploits a new explanation for investors’ inattention to the after-hours earnings announcements. We document hundreds of after-trading hours earnings-related filings, which are designed to be released the following morning, are released immediately during the night through the EDGAR system. Our results show that the overnight released earnings report matters to the market participants, as investors react more completely, and analysts incorporate these earnings more quickly into their forecasts. We attribute these reactions to the information availability of earnings reports. Furthermore, the results are only significant for bad earnings news, which is consistent with the loss aversion argument that individuals pay more attention to bad news. Moreover, we also document the consequences of this overnight release event. We find firms that have experienced this type of event before will be less likely to issue their earnings in the same timeslot when their reports are designed to be released on the following day. At last, we also find that future annual reports’ readability will be improved after firms experience the immediate release event during the night. As a result, our paper provides a new explanation of the investors’ inattentive behavior during after-hours.
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