Download or read book Intraday Trading Behavior Around Interim Earnings Announcements on the Helsinki Stock Exchange written by Markku J. Vieru and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of the study is to investigate whether and how an anticipated information event such as an interim earnings announcement affects intraday trading on the Helsinki Stock Exchange, the HSE. The Finnish stock market, with its special characteristics, provides a suitable forum to study the robustness of previous findings produced in more developed stock markets (e.g. the US). The article finds evidence from the HSE that the widely documented U-shape pattern in trading activity - namely heavy trading in the beginning and at the end of the trading day and relatively light trading in the middle of the day - is affected by an anticipated information event (i.e. interim earnings announcement). Before the announcement day, trading is more concentrated at the close. This is consistent with investors' heterogeneous willingness to bear expected overnight risk, which is especially prevalent before an announcement. Moreover, a somewhat greater concentration of trading on the open is evident after the announcement day, indicating unexpected overnight information. The results of the paper further indicate that the change in the trading concentration pattern is associated with announcement-related factors, such as the range of analysts' earnings forecasts, the magnitude of unexpected earnings and firm size. This association is evident for the overall change in the trading pattern and to some extent during the transition between trading and non-trading regimes.