Regulation FD Disclosure of 8-K filing and Stock Crash Risk

Abstract

This paper tests whether item 7.01 of the Form 8-K filing, which is subject to the regulation FD, mitigates stock crash risk. The regulation FD forces the firm to communicate private information using information channel with broad coverage. Such communications may mitigate the firm's stock crash risk by revealing the negative news in a more timely manner. Consistently, I find a negative association between the frequency of item 7.01 disclosures with the negative news (measured by market reaction surrounding the Form 8-K filing date) and subsequent stock crash risk. On the contrary, the results show that there is no association between the frequency of item 7.01 disclosures with the positive news and subsequent stock crash risk. Such association is more pronounced when the firm's is not followed by equity analysts or do not have high percentage of institutional ownership. I also find that item 7.01 disclosures provide incremental information over other voluntary items or mandatory items of the Form 8-K filing. Finally, I use tone of the item 7.01 disclosures to identify whether the news is positive or negative, and find consistent results to the main findings. Overall, these findings suggest that communications subject to the regulation FD, especially the negative ones, are an important mechanism that mitigate stock crash risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Seoul Journal of Business is the property of Seoul National University, College of Business Administration and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)