Option informativeness before earnings announcements and under real activity manipulation

Purpose This paper aims to investigate whether single-name options trading prior to earnings announcements is more informative when there exist real activity manipulations. Design/methodology/approach Using 5,419 earnings announcements during 2004-2018 made by 208 public US companies with relatively high options volumes ranked by the CBOE, the authors uncover two regularities using predictive regressions for stock return. Findings First, the total options volume up to twenty days pre-announcement is significantly higher than that in other periods only for earnings management firms; moreover, after detailing options characteristics, the authors find these intensive pre-announcement trading to be concentrated in transactions of in-the-money call and long-term maturity put options. Second, an increase in the single-name call minus put options volume can positively predict the underlying stock's next-day excess return much better in real earnings management firms, with a larger magnitude of effect in periods right before regular earnings announcement dates. Originality/value This paper makes a marginal and novel contribution by showing that real earnings management can serve as a proxy for the potential profit from informed trading in options as the return predictability of options volume becomes stronger for firms that have the manipulation motive and indeed perform manipulative actions.