Based on the 2011-2017 annual earning preannouncements of A-share listed companies

this paper empirically examines whether managers utilize investor attention to time the disclosure of earning preannouncement and whether investors react as managers expect. We find that: 1) Managers incline to disclose bad news on weekend

busy days on which many firms disclose the preannouncement and late days and vice versa because investors are supposed to be inattentive on these days. 2) Compared to disclosing the preannouncement based on investors’ sentiment

disclosing the preannouncement based on investors’ attention is more common. Firms which have experience of disclosing based on investors’ attention are more likely to adopt the attention strategy. 3) There is no significant difference between the market reactions towards the preannouncement disclosed on workdays or weekend. However

the market reactions are significantly weak on busy days and late day compared to on non-busy days and early days. Therefore

the timing strategy of disclosing good news on high attention days and bad news on low attention days is successful with desirable results achieved. Our results support the "investors’ limited attention" hypothesis.