Option market activity increases by more than 10 percent in the four days before quarterly earnings announcements. We show that the direction of this pre-announcement trading foreshadows subsequent earnings news. Specifically, we find option traders initiate a greater proportion of long (short)...

Does investors' inattention contribute to the post-earnings announcement drift? I study this question using media coverage as a proxy for attention. I compare announcements made by the same firm in the same year and generating the same earnings surprise, when one announcement is covered in the...

Psychological research suggests that individuals are satisficiers. That is, when confronted with a large number of options, individuals often choose the first acceptable option, rather than the best possible option (Simon 1957). Given the vast quantity of information available and the widespread...

We model the strategic interaction between fundamental investors and "back-runners,'' whose only information is about the past order flow of fundamental investors. Back-runners partly infer fundamental investors' information from their order flow and exploit it in subsequent trading. Fundamental...