It is clearly in the interest of an efficient market for investors to be well-informed, and for information to be equally accessible to everyone. But I am not certain Mr G N Setty’s suggestion in the Business Times late last week of a later start to trading on the Singapore Exchange is the answer.

Writing his letter from Sydney, Mr Setty would know the Australian Stock Exchange only opens from 10am to 4pm Eastern time, but companies often post their announcements during the session. If the news is going to move the market, they ask for a trading halt.

The problem with the current arrangement on the Singapore Exchange is not the trading hours, but the tendency of many companies to disclose market moving information after the market closes.

First, many analysts already work long hours into the evening in order to advise their clients by the following morning.

Second, journalists have a tough time meeting editorial deadlines when they have to attend press conferences in the evening.

Third, during earnings season the sheer volume of corporate announcements means it is virtually impossible for analysts and journalists to cover all the important stories well, and for the investing public to digest all the news. Public relations firms regularly resort to distributing press releases and presentation materials on SGXNet over the course of a few days, in the hope their story will be picked up by the media even several days after the statutory financial statements were posted.

The irony is that the SGX advocates this. They want companies to post their crucial announcements after the market has closed, to allow as much time as possible for investors to catch up with it. The problem is, while there are many hours between the 5pm close and the 9am open the following morning, few people are actually awake for all of them. Plus there are many companies, such as SingTel, STATS ChipPAC, Chartered Semiconductor and Creative Technologies, which tend to report early in the morning, with only one or two hours before the market opens.

In my view, companies should avail themselves of a trading halt more frequently and post their announcements during the session. They would have the market’s attention to themselves. Their shares might also see more interest once they resume trade. It would make for a far more interesting trading session if there was lots of news breaking and lots of action going on, rather than the day’s trade only bouncing off the previous night’s news, or the smattering of announcements at lunchtime.

Having more time to digest news is only half the equation. A more important question is how far investors are willing to go to stay informed. The days when the press was the only disseminator of information, and investors had to wait to read announcements in the newspaper the following morning, are long over.