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The short answer. A delisting notice is a letter from Nasdaq or the NYSE saying a company no longer meets a rule for staying listed. Filings that report one are bunched on Friday evening, so this bad news often lands at the end of the week.
A company report filed then, called an 8-K, is about 3.4 times as likely to carry one as a report filed on another weeknight. Good news runs on a different clock, since press releases saying a company fixed the problem rarely go out on Friday evening. That matters to anyone who follows a company, because a Notre Dame study found bad news filed more often when investors pay less attention, "typically on Fridays or after-market hours."
Delisting notices on Friday evening, July 2025 to November 2026
Delisting notices filed on Friday after 4 pm
~1 in 3
434 of 1,373, in a slot with 1 in 10 of all company event reports (8-Ks)
Chance a Friday evening 8-K carries one, vs other weeknights
~3.4x
5.8% of Friday company reports (8-Ks) after 4 pm, 1.7% on other weeknights
Press releases on a new notice sent Friday evening
~27%
184 of about 690, against 2.6% of all company releases
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Monday, before 4 pm | 0.9% |
| Monday, after 4 pm | 1.7% |
| Tuesday, before 4 pm | 0.9% |
| Tuesday, after 4 pm | 1.9% |
| Wednesday, before 4 pm | 1.0% |
| Wednesday, after 4 pm | 1.6% |
| Thursday, before 4 pm | 0.8% |
| Thursday, after 4 pm | 1.6% |
| Friday, before 4 pm | 1.3% |
| Friday, after 4 pm | 5.8% |
How often do delisting notices come out on Friday night?
About 1 in 3 of them are filed once the market closes on Friday. Only 1 in 10 of all company reports on big events are filed then.
An 8-K is a short report a US public company files with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It covers big news, like a new boss, a deal or a problem. The SEC's Form 8-K sorts that news into numbered items, and StockTitan's guide explains what an 8-K is in more detail.
Item 3.01 covers problems with a company's stock exchange listing. Most often it reports a delisting notice, a letter from the exchange saying the company no longer meets a rule for staying listed. The charts call it an exchange warning, the same thing. A notice is not a delisting, and the company often gets time to fix the problem. One example is a share price that stays under the exchange's minimum for 30 business days in a row, under Nasdaq Rule 5810. Item 3.01 also covers companies that are being bought and will stop trading. Merger closings report a completed sale, so they are not counted as notices.
Of the 1,373 delisting notices filed from July 2025 to November 2026, 434 were filed on Friday after 4 pm, the hour the stock market closes. Of those, 416 were accepted by 5:30 pm and went public the same evening.
On Friday evenings, these notices were in 5.8% of all 8-Ks, against 1.7% on other weeknights. So a Friday evening filing was about 3.4 times as likely to carry one.
The evening alone does not explain the gap. About six in ten 8-Ks arrive after the 4 pm close on any weekday. Friday daytime also looks much like any other day. Before 4 pm on Friday, 1.3% of filings carried a notice. The jump comes once the market closes for the weekend.
Earnings reports crowd the other evenings and almost never come on Friday night, which could make the gap look bigger. With earnings filings left out, Friday evening still carries about 2.5 times the weeknight share of notices.
Show the data
| Category | Friday | Monday to Thursday |
|---|---|---|
| 6 am | 1.0% | 0.6% |
| 7 am | 0.8% | 0.6% |
| 8 am | 1.9% | 0.8% |
| 9 am | 1.8% | 1.4% |
| 10 am | 0.6% | 1.4% |
| 11 am | 0.6% | 1.0% |
| 12 pm | 0.5% | 1.9% |
| 1 pm | 0.0% | 1.7% |
| 2 pm | 1.2% | 0.9% |
| 3 pm | 2.0% | 0.9% |
| 4 pm | 4.9% | 1.4% |
| 5 pm | 8.2% | 2.8% |
The hour with the highest share of notices is 5 pm on Friday. In that hour, 8.2% of filings carried one, the highest of any hour with 1,000 filings or more.
What time do 8-K filings come out on Friday?
Most Friday evening filings land between 4 and 5:30 pm. That is the last stretch in which a filing still counts as filed on Friday and goes public the same day.
EDGAR, the SEC's filing system, accepts filings from 6 am to 10 pm Eastern time on weekdays, the SEC says. The cutoff that matters is 5:30 pm. Under Regulation S-T Rule 13, a filing sent later counts as filed on the next business day.
The SEC adds that most filings sent after 5:30 pm "will not be disseminated by EDGAR until the next business day." For an 8-K sent late on a Friday, that usually means Monday morning. Only insider trade reports and a few other forms get a later 10 pm cutoff.
Of the 7,547 Friday evening 8-Ks, 94% were accepted by 5:30 pm. They count as filed that Friday and are public at once, yet they arrive after the market has closed for the weekend.
Do press releases about delisting notices follow the same pattern?
Yes. Press releases about a new delisting notice go out on Friday evening ten times as often as releases in general. Releases saying the problem is fixed do not.
Nasdaq lets a company announce a notice with an 8-K or a press release (Rule 5810(b)). A press release is required when the notice is about a late annual or quarterly report.
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Exchange warning | 26.7% |
| Listing problem fixed | 2.5% |
| All press releases | 2.6% |
Of about 690 releases whose headlines announced a Nasdaq or NYSE notice, 184 went out on Friday after 4 pm. Just 2.6% of all company releases went out then.
The good news follows a different clock. Releases saying a company had regained compliance, meaning it fixed the problem, went out on Friday evening just 2.5% of the time, about the same as releases in general. Most went out on weekdays before 4 pm.
What other bad news shows up in Friday 8-K filings?
Delisting notices lead, but other unwelcome items are also more common on Friday evening. Notices that old financial results can no longer be trusted are about twice as common, and earnings reports nearly disappear.
The chart compares Friday evening filings with filings on Monday to Thursday evenings, item by item.
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Stock exchange warning (3.01) | 3.4x |
| Old results cannot be relied on (4.02) | 2.1x |
| Change of auditor (4.01) | 1.6x |
| Shareholder vote results (5.07) | 1.5x |
| Leadership change (5.02) | 1.5x |
| Earnings report (2.02) | 0.2x |
Item 4.02 is rare but serious. It means a company says investors can no longer rely on financial statements it already published. It was about twice as common on Friday evening as on other weeknights. Item 4.01, a change of the outside accounting firm that checks the books, was also more common.
Not everything on Friday evening is bad news. Shareholder vote results, a routine filing after a company's annual meeting, were about 1.5 times as common, and so were leadership changes. Item 5.02 covers new hires as well as exits, so it says little alone.
The real gap is earnings. Only 6% of Friday evening 8-Ks held quarterly results, against 32% on other weeknights.
Show the data
| 8-K item | Friday after 4 pm | Monday to Thursday after 4 pm | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.01 Delisting notice (merger closings removed) | 434 of 7,547 (5.75%) | 659 of 38,632 (1.71%) | 3.4x |
| 4.02 Past results cannot be relied on | 29 (0.38%) | 72 (0.19%) | 2.1x |
| 4.01 Change of auditor | 93 (1.23%) | 299 (0.77%) | 1.6x |
| 5.07 Shareholder vote results | 1,008 (13.4%) | 3,356 (8.7%) | 1.5x |
| 5.02 Directors and officers leaving, joining or paid | 2,022 (26.8%) | 6,943 (18.0%) | 1.5x |
| 2.02 Earnings results | 449 (5.95%) | 12,420 (32.15%) | 0.2x |
Source: StockTitan SEC filings data, Form 8-K filings accepted July 1, 2025 to November 10, 2026, by EDGAR acceptance time in Eastern time. One filing can carry several items.
What research says about bad news on Friday evenings
Researchers have found the same timing before. A 2023 study of filings from 2005 to 2018 linked negative 8-Ks to times of low investor attention.
Caleb Rawson, Brady Twedt and Jessica Watkins studied close to 50,000 non-earnings 8-Ks for a paper in The Accounting Review. In Notre Dame's summary, managers were more likely to file negative news "typically on Fridays or after-market hours." On StockTitan's own pages, fewer people read on Friday evenings than on any other weekday evening, in the four weeks to November 8, 2026.
The study's main finding was a second habit, an unrelated press release sent the same day as a negative 8-K. Notre Dame's summary says that habit slows how quickly the market takes in the information and "results in fewer people reading the 8-K filing."
A newer count points the same way. Equibles Research, a filings data firm, reported on October 28, 2026 that 35.5% of 1,531 listing notices from January 2025 to October 2026 went out on Friday after 4 pm. Equibles also reported that the Friday evening timing did not soften the market's reaction once trading resumed.
So the Notre Dame study ties Friday and after-hours filings to low investor attention, while Equibles found no softer market reaction to Friday evening listing deficiency notices. A filing accepted between 4 and 5:30 pm is still public the same evening on EDGAR.
Our numbers
These figures are our calculations from the sources linked in this article. They cover 75,818 Form 8-K filings accepted from July 1, 2025 to November 10, 2026 and show when companies filed, never why.
- About 1 in 3: 434 of the 1,373 delisting notices (Item 3.01 without a merger closing, Item 2.01 or 5.01) were filed on Friday after 4 pm, a slot with 7,547 of the 75,818 8-Ks, about 1 in 10.
- 416 of 434: the Friday evening notices accepted by 5:30 pm, still about 1 in 3 of all notices.
- About 3.4 times (5.8% against 1.7%): 434 of 7,547 Friday 8-Ks after 4 pm and 659 of 38,632 Monday to Thursday 8-Ks after 4 pm carried such a notice.
- About six in ten: the share of all 8-Ks accepted after 4 pm.
- 1.3%, 4.9% and 8.2%: the notice share of Friday 8-Ks before 4 pm, in the 4 pm hour and in the 5 pm hour.
- About 2.5 times: the notice shares with earnings filings left out, 6.09% against 2.47%.
- 94%: 7,128 of 7,547 Friday evening 8-Ks accepted by 5:30 pm.
- 184 of about 690: press releases whose headlines matched a Nasdaq or NYSE notice, sent on Friday after 4 pm; the count rests on headline wording, so it is approximate.
- 2.5% and 2.6%: the Friday after 4 pm share of releases on regained compliance (12 of 489, while 396 went out on weekdays before 4 pm) and of all releases (5,742 of 220,649).
- Item ratios, 6% and 32%: each item's share of Friday evening 8-Ks over its weeknight share.
- Fewer readers on Friday evenings: from October 12 to November 8, 2026, StockTitan's page views from 4 pm to midnight Eastern time were lower on Friday than on any other weekday.
Frequently asked questions
It is a letter from a stock exchange, such as Nasdaq or the NYSE, telling a company that it no longer meets a rule for staying listed. Common reasons are a share price under the minimum or a late annual report. A US company reports it in an 8-K under Item 3.01, and Nasdaq also asks for a public announcement within four business days.
Not by itself. A notice usually opens a period to fix the problem, such as 180 calendar days for a low share price under Nasdaq Rule 5810. If the company does not fix it in time, Nasdaq staff issue a delisting decision, which the company can appeal under Rule 5815.
Generally four business days after the event, under General Instruction B.1 of Form 8-K. An event on a weekend or holiday starts the count on the next business day. Some items follow their own timing, such as news shared under Regulation FD, the SEC rule on telling all investors at the same time.
EDGAR runs from 6 am to 10 pm Eastern time on weekdays. A filing sent by 5:30 pm counts as filed that day and is public right away. Most filings sent after 5:30 pm, 8-Ks included, are not released until the next business day.
On StockTitan, the live SEC filings feed can be filtered to Item 3.01, which shows each new delisting notice as EDGAR releases it, along with merger closings. The 8-K page collects recent 8-Ks with a short summary of each, and every 8-K is also public on the SEC's EDGAR system. StockTitan's guide to the main types of SEC filings explains the other forms.
Sources
- StockTitan live SEC filings feed, Item 3.01
- StockTitan Form 8-K filings
- StockTitan company press releases
- SEC, Form 8-K and its General Instructions
- Regulation S-T Rule 13, 17 CFR 232.13
- SEC, How do I determine the status of my filing
- Nasdaq Rulebook, 5800 Series (Rule 5810 and IM-5810-1)
- Rawson, Twedt and Watkins, The Accounting Review, 2023
- University of Notre Dame, study release, May 3, 2023
- Equibles Research, October 28, 2026