Do first and third quarter unaudited financial reports matter? The Portuguese case

In this paper we investigate the incremental information content of a sample of 1,751 quarterly financial reports, issued in Portugal between 1994 and 2004. Specifically, we examine price and volume reactions to financial reports issued in: (1) the first and third quarters, which are unaudited; (2) the second quarter, which is subject to limited audit; and (3) the fourth quarter (the annual report) which is subject to a full audit. We conclude that unaudited first and third quarter financial reports that include condensed income statements and balance sheets convey enough new information to the market to spur significant price and trading reactions. This conclusion holds before and after the first and third quarter reports were made mandatory in 1999. We also found that the incremental information content of the second quarter report dropped after 1999, presumably because part of its information content was usurped by the newly required first quarter reports. Finally, we found evidence that mandatory audited reports announcements spur more significant price reactions than mandatory unaudited financial reports. In contrast to evidence from other countries, we found that smaller firms' disclosures do not generate a larger reaction than large firms' disclosures.