Wall Street Journal: Choosing the Right Earnings Day is a Complex Task for Finance Executives

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On Thursday, more than 420 companies listed in the U.S. are expected to release earnings, which could be good or bad, depending on the company, according to Wall Street Horizon Inc., a data provider that tracks over 7,500 companies globally.

Reporting on a busy day can make it easier for companies to hide disappointing results amid a tsunami of information from other businesses. But a small company with good news to present might be overlooked by the volume of corporate behemoths reporting on the same day.

Attention paid toward companies’ earnings—measured by metrics such as downloads of regulatory filings, Google searches and news articles—drops on popular reporting days, said Ed deHaan, an associate professor of accounting at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business.