Does real-time reporting deter strategic disclosures by management?

Over the last decade, the SEC has taken a number of steps to move towards a real-time reporting regime in an effort to deter strategic accumulation of news disclosures by management. However, evidence from theoretical literature suggests managers are still able to engage in strategic bunching of within-firm disclosures under a real-time reporting regime if managers have control over the timing of news-triggering events. To test whether real-time reporting deters strategic disclosures I examine managers' disclosure behavior for both regular poison pill adoptions and in-play pill adoptions because managers can time the regular poison pill adoptions but have limited ability to do so for in-play pill adoptions. My results indicate real-time reporting does not (does) deter disclosure bunching for regular poison pills (in-play pills). To the extent that disclosure bunching occurs for in-play pills under the real-time reporting regime, my findings suggest managers are more likely to time the disclosure of other news to achieve disclosure bunching. Disclosure bunching dampens the negative pricing impact of poison pill adoption disclosures and continues to do so under the real-time reporting regime.