Accruals and Future Stock Returns

Accruals and Future Stock Returns PDF Author: Ashiq Ali
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 30

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Book Description
We explore whether the association between accruals and future returns documented by Sloan (1996) is due to fixation by naive investors on the total amount of reported earnings without regard for the relative magnitude of the accrual and cash flow components. Contrary to the predictions of the naive investor hypothesis, we find that the predictive ability of accruals for subsequent annual returns and for quarterly earnings-announcement stock returns is not lower for large firms or for firms followed more by analysts or held more by institutions. Further, we find that the ability of accruals to predict future returns does not seem to depend on stock price or transaction volume, measures of transaction costs, also contrary to predictions of the naive investor hypothesis. These results are robust to regression and hedge portfolio tests. We conclude that the predictive ability of accruals for subsequent returns does not seem to be due to the inability of market participants to understand value-relevant information.

Accruals and Future Stock Returns

Accruals and Future Stock Returns PDF Author: Ashiq Ali
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 30

Get Book Here

Book Description
We explore whether the association between accruals and future returns documented by Sloan (1996) is due to fixation by naive investors on the total amount of reported earnings without regard for the relative magnitude of the accrual and cash flow components. Contrary to the predictions of the naive investor hypothesis, we find that the predictive ability of accruals for subsequent annual returns and for quarterly earnings-announcement stock returns is not lower for large firms or for firms followed more by analysts or held more by institutions. Further, we find that the ability of accruals to predict future returns does not seem to depend on stock price or transaction volume, measures of transaction costs, also contrary to predictions of the naive investor hypothesis. These results are robust to regression and hedge portfolio tests. We conclude that the predictive ability of accruals for subsequent returns does not seem to be due to the inability of market participants to understand value-relevant information.

Accounting Accruals and Future Stock Returns

Accounting Accruals and Future Stock Returns PDF Author: Wonsun Paek
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Accrual basis accounting
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description


Earnings Quality and Stock Returns

Earnings Quality and Stock Returns PDF Author: Konan Chan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
An exclusive focus on bottom-line income misses important information about the quality of earnings. Accruals (the difference between accounting earnings and cash flow) are reliably, negatively associated with future stock returns. Earnings increases that are accompanied by high accruals, suggesting low-quality earnings, are associates with poor future returns. We explore various hypotheses - earnings manipulation, extrapolative biases about future growth, and under-reaction to changes in business conditions - to explain accruals' predictive power. Distinctions between the hypotheses are based on evidence from operating performance, the behavior of individual accrual items, discretionary versus nondiscretionary components of accruals, and special items. We check for robustness using within-industry comparisons, and data on U.K. stocks.

Earnings Quality and Stock Returns

Earnings Quality and Stock Returns PDF Author: Konan Chan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 38

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Book Description
An exclusive focus on bottom-line income misses important information about the quality of earnings. Accruals (the difference between accounting earnings and cash flows) are reliably, negatively associated with future stock returns. Earnings increases that accompanied by high accruals, suggesting low-quality earnings, are associated with poor future returns. We explore various hypotheses - earnings manipulation, extrapolative biases about future growth, and under-reaction to business conditions - to explain accruals' predictive power. Distinctions between the hypotheses are based on evidence from operating performance, the behavior of individual accrual items, and discretionary versus nondiscretionary components of accruals.

The Role of Accruals in Predicting Future Cash Flows and Stock Returns

The Role of Accruals in Predicting Future Cash Flows and Stock Returns PDF Author: Francois Brochet
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 55

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Book Description
We revisit the role of the cash and accrual components of accounting earnings in predicting future cash flows using out-of-sample predictions, firm-specific regression estimates, and different levels of aggregation of the dependent variable, with market value of equity as a proxy for all future cash flows. We find that, on average, accruals improve upon current cash flow from operations in predicting future cash flows. As accruals' contribution to the prediction of future cash flows varies significantly across firm-quarters, we proceed to investigating determinants of accruals' predictive ability for future cash flows. We find that positive accruals are more likely to improve upon current cash flow in predicting future cash flows. Accruals' contribution is also increasing in cash flow volatility and decreasing in the magnitude of discretionary accruals and of special items. Finally, portfolios formed on stock return predictions using information from current CFO and accruals yield significantly positive returns on average, as opposed to CFO alone. Hence, investors using predictions based on current accounting data to pick stocks are better off taking accruals into account. We also find that Sloan's (1996) accrual anomaly is related to our accrual contribution anomaly. Indeed, when accruals' contribution to future cash flow prediction is the highest, the accrual anomaly vanishes.

Do Accruals Drive Stock Returns? A Variance Decomposition Analysis

Do Accruals Drive Stock Returns? A Variance Decomposition Analysis PDF Author: Jeffrey L. Callen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This paper extends the variance decomposition framework of Campbell (1991), Campbell and Ammer (1993) and Vuolteenhao (2002) to address the relative value relevance of accruals news, cash flow news and expected return news in driving firm-level equity returns. The extension is based on the Feltham-Ohlson (1995, 1996) clean surplus relations. Accruals news is found to significantly dominate expected-return news in driving firm-level stock returns. Operating income news is also found to significantly dominate both expected-return news and free cash flow news in driving firm-level stock returns. Furthermore, after splitting net income into cash flow and accrual earnings components in the Vuolteenhao (2000) model, accrual earnings news is found to significantly dominate both expected-return news and cash flow earnings news in driving firm-level stock returns. Overall, these three results indicate that changes in expected future accruals are the primary driver of current stock returns rather than changes in expected future cash flows or future discount rates.

Accounting Accruals and Stock Returns

Accounting Accruals and Stock Returns PDF Author: George A. Papanastasopoulos
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
In this paper, I show a generalization of the negative relation of traditional accruals and percent accruals with future returns in 11 of 16 European countries. Positive abnormal returns from hedge portfolios on both accrual measures summarize the economic significance of this generalization. The magnitude of returns obtained from traditional accruals is higher than that obtained from percent accruals, contrary to existing evidence from the U.S. capital market. The magnitude of the accrual effect on stock returns based on both accrual measures is stronger in countries with higher individualism, lower uncertainty avoidance, higher equity-market development, higher equity-market liquidity, lower transaction costs, higher analyst coverage, lower analyst optimism, and lower ownership concentration. In markets where minorities have legal protection against expropriation by corporate insiders and where accrual accounting is permitted, the accrual effect based only on percent accruals is positive. Earnings opacity does not appear to exhibit a significant influence. Overall, the evidence suggests that cross-country differences in culture, equity-market setting, analysts' research output, investor protection, and ownership structure play an important role in explaining variation on the magnitude of the accrual anomaly in Europe.

Do Accruals Drive Firm-Level Stock Returns? A Variance Decomposition Analysis

Do Accruals Drive Firm-Level Stock Returns? A Variance Decomposition Analysis PDF Author: Jeffrey L. Callen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Book Description
This paper extends the variance decomposition framework of Campbell (1991), Campbell and Ammer (1993) and Vuolteenaho (2002) to address the relative value relevance of accrual news, cash flow news and expected return news in driving firm-level equity returns. The extension is based on the Feltham-Ohlson (1995, 1996) clean surplus relations. Using three models, this study shows that all three factors, accruals, cash flows and expected future discount rates are value relevant. Moreover, accrual news is found to significantly dominate expected-return news in driving firm-level stock returns. Operating income news is also found to significantly dominate both expected-return news and free cash flow news in driving firm-level stock returns. Furthermore, after splitting net income into cash flow and accrual earnings components in the Vuolteenaho (2002) model, accrual earnings news and cash flow earnings news are found to equally drive firm-level stock returns and to dominate expected-return news. Further disaggregation of the data yields some evidence that accrual earnings news is a more important factor than cash flow earnings news in driving current stock returns. Overall, the three models indicate that changes in expected future accruals are a primary driver, if not the primary driver, of current stock returns.

Conservatism, Accrual Persistence Asymmetry, and Stock Returns

Conservatism, Accrual Persistence Asymmetry, and Stock Returns PDF Author: Gulraze Wakil
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 42

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Book Description
This paper investigates accounting conservatism's effects on accrual persistence and accrual-related future stock returns. We find conservatism significantly increases accrual persistence and accrual-related future stock returns and more so in high accrual firms. We attribute this to conservatism's reliability and verifiability requirements. However, the effect is statistically insignificant using only low accrual firms. Therefore, conservatism's effects on accruals depend on their magnitude, i.e., asymmetrically. Moreover, increases in persistence and stock returns related to conservatism in high accrual firms also exists in recent years during which prior literature has shown the accruals anomaly to have diminished to insignificant levels. Our paper will be of interest to investors because markets do not fully capture how accounting conservatism affects accruals and also to auditors, lenders, and standard setters since collectively our paper finds accounting conservatism to be a positive trait for financial reporting.

The Accrual Anomaly

The Accrual Anomaly PDF Author: Jin Ginger Wu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Corporations
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
Interpreting accruals as working capital investment, we hypothesize that firms rationally adjust their investment to respond to discount rate changes. Consistent with the optimal investment hypothesis, we document that (i) the predictive power of accruals for future stock returns increases with the covariations of accruals with past and current stock returns, and (ii) adding investment-based factors into standard factor regressions substantially reduces the magnitude of the accrual anomaly. High accrual firms also have similar corporate governance and entrenchment indexes as low accrual firms. This evidence suggests that the accrual anomaly is more likely to be driven by optimal investment than by investor overreaction to excessive growth or over-investment.