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I investigate capital market consequences of an increase in prescribed timeliness of firms’ mandatory disclosure of material events. Specifically, I examine an SEC regulatory change that accelerates the Form 8-K filing deadline and classify 8-Ks as likely to be constrained or unconstrained by the increase in prescribed timeliness. After the regulatory change, firms filing constrained 8-Ks exhibit increases in information asymmetry between investors and investor disagreement at the 8-K filing date relative to firms filing unconstrained 8-Ks. Moreover, the relative increases in information asymmetry and investor disagreement for firms filing constrained 8-Ks appear to be attributable to a decline in the length of and quantitative information included in 8-K disclosure. My findings shed light on the costs of a prescriptive approach to enhanced disclosure timeliness of ongoing disclosure.

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This study examines managers’ strategic use of concurrent disclosures around the announcement of negative material events. We predict and find that managers disclosing negative 8-K news are more likely to issue a concurrent press release about an unrelated event relative to a press release providing additional context for the 8-K triggering event in order to increase investor information processing costs. This strategy appears distinct from the bundling of news to deter litigation. We find that managers more commonly issue concurrent unrelated press releases when they have stronger incentives to impede the pricing of negative information, and that doing so is associated with a reduction in the speed with which prices reflect the news. Our findings shed light on a previously unexplored tool managers use to exploit investors’ processing capacity constraints to “hide” negative news.