On September 8, 2008 Lehman Brothers announced that it was going to hold it's third quarter fiscal release on September 18th, and disclose strategic initiatives the company was undertaking. As pressures rose on the stock, Lehman decided to release it's unfinished plans on September 10th.
The market was disappointed to hear tentative plans and not actual measures that the company had taken to shore up confidence . Lehman should have stuck to its guns.
Had the company made a press release to the effect that it would be premature and potentially harmful to discuss ongoing negotiations and that it would give a detailed disclosure on September 18th, as it had announced just two days ago, it would have bought some time.
There would have been some people dissatisfied with that response, but the end result could not have been any worse than what ensued on September 10th and 11th. The stock lost more than 50% of it's value and put the company in an even more weakened position.