Dark and Lit Market Fragmentation and Post-Earnings Announcements Drift

Abstract

This study examines the effects of dark and lit market fragmentation around both earnings announcements and earnings surprises. I find that both dark and lit market fragmentation increase around earnings announcements. I further test whether dark and lit fragmentation hinders the level of price discovery around the earnings announcement, resulting in greater post-earnings announcement drift, PEAD. My analysis reveals that lit fragmentation has no significant impact on PEAD while dark fragmentation reduces the level of PEAD for stocks with positive earnings surprises consistent with the notion that dark venues capture more uninformed trading around positive news events, resulting in greater informed trading and higher informational efficiency on the lit venue. However, my results also indicate that dark fragmentation leads to stronger PEAD for stocks with negative earnings surprises. This last finding suggests that informed traders migrate to dark venues around negative earnings surprise, consistent with previous literature that argues informed traders follow passive trading strategies around negative news events.