We test the proposition in Johnstone (2016) that new information may lead to higher, rather than lower, uncertainty about firms' future payoffs. Based on the Bayesian rule, we hypothesize earnings news that is inconsistent with investors' prior belief will lead to higher market uncertainty....

High-frequency trading has become a dominant force in the U.S. capital market, accounting for over 70% of dollar trading volume. This study examines the implication of high-frequency trading for stock price volatility and price discovery. I find that high-frequency trading is positively...

The performance of analysts’ forecasts has attracted increasing attention in recent years. However, as yet, no empirical study has investigated the nexus between the analyst forecast dispersion (AFD) and excess returns surrounding stock market crashes in any depth. This paper attempts to fill...

We examine the predictive information content of the management forecasts of stock return volatility (i.e., expected volatility) that are disclosed in annual reports. We find that expected volatility predicts near-term and longer-term stock return volatility and earnings volatility incremental...

There is a logical bound on the time-series variability of analyst forecasts; when variability exceeds this bound it must be caused by something besides statistically rational forecasting. We document occurrences of excessively volatile analyst forecasts and show that they influence investment...

A stream of literature shows that human attention constraints affect asset pricing in predictable ways. When traders are distracted, stock prices tend to initially underreact to earnings news and then gradually incorporate the news over subsequent weeks. In modern markets, however, the majority...

We develop a measure of how information events impact investors' perceptions of risk that is broadly applicable and simple to implement. We derive this measure from an option-pricing model where investors anticipate an announcement that simultaneously conveys information on the announcer's...

We evaluate the impact of complexity and content of new information on stock return volatility dynamics around 10-K fillings. On average, return volatility increases by 0.4% in the first four weeks after the release of the report, followed by a 2.6% decrease in the subsequent six weeks. This...

We investigate whether implied volatility comovements reflect the degree to which a firm’s private information is informative about future macroeconomic news. We compute IVC, the comovement of the implied volatilities between the firm and the aggregate market. IVC measures the extent to which...

This paper examines the relation between firm-level implied volatility skew and the likelihood of extreme negative events, or crash risk. I show that volatility skew identifies which firms are likely to experience crashes, but only in short-window earnings announcement periods. The predictive...