Events

Mr. Da XU
Ph.D. Candidate in Finance and Financial Accounting
A. B. Freeman School of Business
Tulane University

This paper studies earnings call slide decks (decks, hereafter)—an element of earnings announcements that has increased dramatically over the last decade. I find that decks tend to occur for firms that have manager changes, are younger, are bigger, host earnings calls during a busy time, have more analyst coverage, have more segments, and are foreign. In a content analysis, I document that decks contain a significant amount of financial information and visuals (i.e., charts and tables). In earnings call dialogue, decks are frequently and mostly quoted for elaborating details. I also find that the existence of decks is positively associated with the strength of market reactions, a decrease of analyst forecast errors, and an increase in the speed of price discovery and analyst revisions around earnings announcements. Further analyses of earnings call transcripts show that, in calls with decks, managers use less complex languages, analysts assimilate more information from managers’ speeches, and each analyst asks fewer questions. Overall, these results suggest a distinctive role of decks in improving information dissemination.