Find public company: The GEO Group, Inc. that missed expected earnings (earnings per share) in the earnings announcement at some point from December 2018 - 2021 (see Wall Street Journal available in the library).

1)Identify how much the stock price changed in the 24-48 hours after the announcement (price before - price after), prices can be found on the internet.

2)Then multiply the stock price change by the number of common shares (see the financial statements in the 10-k) to determine the total change in the value of the market capitalization of the firm.

3)Comment on whether you think how management of The GEO Group, Inc. might be motivated to misreport earnings given the way the market operates when these announcements are made.

4)Keep in mind as you do this that the SEC considered it necessary to issue a Staff Accounting Bulletin about the materiality and in that bulletin (note that sometimes a penny can be material).

5)Explain how this assignment illustrates how a market is efficient.The market gets unexpected news (firm does not make anticipated earnings) and reacts to it.