Prior literature documents a negative stock price reaction to initial securities lawsuit filings, on average. Securities litigation produces a host of publicly accessible court documents, however, and prior research provides no evidence regarding whether or how the market prices information generated by the litigation process. We shed light on the information content of federal court filings by examining the market response to a large sample of initial plaintiff complaints and subsequent docket events. We find the market response to the initial lawsuit filing varies significantly with information about governance and control problems signaled by details of the plaintiff’s complaint. We also find a significant market response to subsequent court filings that increases with measures of litigation severity and decreases as the litigation progresses over time. Overall, our results highlight the role of federally accessible court filings in facilitating the market’s pricing of defendant firms.
Who Knows What When? - The Information Content of Pre-IPO Market Prices
