Information Asymmetry, Investment Horizons, and the Dual Role of Public Announcements

Abstract

This paper investigates inter-temporal relations in market liquidity and price efficiency in a setting that is more descriptive of trading patterns around public announcements than those typically analyzed in the existing literature. The model incorporates both strategic investors who behave as short-term, profit-taking traders, and traders who invest in the security over a long-term horizon. It is shown that an anticipated increase in market liquidity in the announcement period will lead short-term investors to trade more aggressively in the pre-announcement period. This results in improved price efficiency and, in some cases, increased market liquidity in the pre-announcement period. However, a higher propensity to behave as a profit-taker in the announcement period leads to less efficient prices in the pre-announcement period.