Abstract: We investigate the determinants and equity market consequences of special conference calls, a meeting held by publicly-traded companies in which executives provide an overview of specific events related to the firm. Using 4,524 special conference calls, we find that the hosting decision is related to the uncertainty level within the firm’s business, which is measured by R&D intensity. Incorporating a Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model examining textual content, we classify special conference calls into four major types — new product introductions, business updates, strategic changes, and (un)successful drug trials. We show that equity market reactions are generally positive for special conference calls (e.g. successful drug trials, business updates, etc.) but unsuccessful drug trials are associated with a negative market reaction. This paper adds to the growing literature examining different types of firm disclosure by documenting the importance of special conference calls.
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