Comparative Approach to Quarterly Earnings Informativeness and Bad News

The present study is to analyze the impact of bad news on quarterly earnings in formativeness of Tehran listed companies during a quarter. The value of earnings reporting process, which is considered an information source for investors, highly depends on the delay in the release of the bad news. This process, be it either due to creating incentives for early and voluntary disclosure or as a result of mandatory disclosure, leads to more precise and prompt release of bad news. It seems managers are more inclined to voluntary disclosure when there is good news or there is no information asymmetry rather than when there is bad news about the company. The main question of this research is whether or not there is a meaningful relation between presence of bad news during a quarter and quarterly earnings in formativeness. In pursuance of answering this question, the data of 80 Tehran listed companies from 2008 to 2012, whose entire information can be found on CODAL, were analyzed using fixed effects regression. The result shows that there is meaningful positive relation between the presence of bad news during a quarter and quarterly earnings in formativeness.