In this paper, we exploit the open nature of conference calls to explore whether managers withhold information from the investing public. Our evidence suggests that managers regularly leave participants on the conference call in the dark by not answering their questions. We find that the best predictors of such an event are firm size, a CEO's stock price–based incentives, company age, firm performance, litigation risk, and whether analysts are actively involved during the call's Q&A section. Finally, we document strong support for the assumption maintained in the literature that investors interpret silence negatively. That is, investors seem to interpret no news as bad news.

Conference calls held in conjunction with an earnings release have become increasingly common in recent years, yet there is little evidence regarding the reasons that these calls are incrementally informative over the accompanying press release. Using a sample of more than 10,000 conference-call transcripts, we examine the information content of both segments of the call—the presentation and the discussion segment. We find that both segments have incremental information content over the accompanying press release. However, discussion periods are relatively more informative than presentation periods, and this greater information content is positively associated with analyst following. We also find that managers provide increased disclosures during the presentation segment when firm performance is poor, but relatively more information is released during discussion periods in these circumstances. Overall, our results are consistent with the notion that active analyst involvement in conference calls increases the information content of the calls, particularly when firm performance is poor.