We find evidence of a significantly negative relationship between stock returns and the clustering of annual general meetings in the UK. The negative returns during the clustering of annual general meetings are not, however, economically significant. We caution against interpreting our results as evidence of a "new anomaly" in stock market returns.

Considering the waiver of the 'within 45 days' rule in Japan following the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, we conduct empirical investigations to examine the determinants of the timeliness of flash reporting and the market reactions to flash announcements during the pandemic, distinguishing between early and late filers and between the 'waiver' year (2020) and 'non-waiver' year (2021). We find that the complexity of operations and earnings news explain the observed reporting delay. We also find significant support for market reactions to flash reporting, suggesting that the waiver policy has no significant impact on the information value of flash announcements.

No abstract