In United States securities law, the quiet period (or waiting period) has "historically [meant], a quiet period of time extended from the time a company files a registration statement with the SEC until SEC staff declared the registration statement effective. During that period, the federal securities laws limited what information a company and related parties can release to the public."[1]

Under the rules of the Securities Act of 1933, as modified June 29, 2005, electronic communications, including electronic road shows and information located on or hyperlinked to an issuer's website are also governed. The rules changes of June 29, 2005 also included various changes which "liberalize permitted offering activity and communications to allow more information" for certain qualifying organizations.

In business finance, a waiting period (or quiet period) is the time in which a company making an IPO must be silent about it, so as not to inflate the value of the stock artificially. It is also called the cooling-off period.

Guidelines

During a Quiet Period, a publicly-listed company cannot make any announcements about anything that could cause a normal investor to change their position on the company's stock. Normally, that means the company does not discuss any of the following:

• New deals or wins signed in that current quarter. Announcements about previously-sold implementations going live are allowed, but must be explicitly described as such
• Management changes
• Progress against company goals
• Major product or service announcements
• Major partnership announcement

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_period

(I) C. W.