Accruals, Cash Flows and the Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift

Accruals, Cash Flows and the Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift PDF Author: Lakshmanan Shivakumar
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 41

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Book Description
Several prior studies have shown that cash flows have significantly greater impact on stock prices than accruals. We examine the implications of these findings for the post-earnings-announcement-drift anomaly. We argue that, if investors under-react to earnings news, then the larger price impact of cash flows causes the cash flow component of earnings news to predict future returns better than the accruals component. Consistent with this argument, we show that unexpected cash flows are more positively related to future returns, than are unexpected accruals. Also, unexpected cash flows are found to predict future returns above and beyond that predicted by earnings surprises. Finally, we show that a strategy that decomposes earnings news into its components significantly outperforms strategies based on earnings news alone. The results support under-reaction explanations for the drift.

Accruals, Cash Flows and the Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift

Accruals, Cash Flows and the Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift PDF Author: Lakshmanan Shivakumar
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 41

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Book Description
Several prior studies have shown that cash flows have significantly greater impact on stock prices than accruals. We examine the implications of these findings for the post-earnings-announcement-drift anomaly. We argue that, if investors under-react to earnings news, then the larger price impact of cash flows causes the cash flow component of earnings news to predict future returns better than the accruals component. Consistent with this argument, we show that unexpected cash flows are more positively related to future returns, than are unexpected accruals. Also, unexpected cash flows are found to predict future returns above and beyond that predicted by earnings surprises. Finally, we show that a strategy that decomposes earnings news into its components significantly outperforms strategies based on earnings news alone. The results support under-reaction explanations for the drift.

Earnings Management and the Post-Earnings Announcement Drift

Earnings Management and the Post-Earnings Announcement Drift PDF Author: Henock Louis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 54

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Book Description
There is reliable evidence that managers smooth their reported earnings. If some firms manage earnings downwards (upwards) when they experience large positive (negative) earnings shocks and if investors have cognitive limits or are inattentive, then it is plausible that the post-earnings announcement drift could be related to earnings management. Consistent with this conjecture, we find that firms with large negative (positive) changes in operating cash flows manage their accruals substantially upwards (downwards). Most importantly, we find no evidence of a positive post-earnings announcement drift for those firms with large positive earnings changes that are least likely to have managed earnings downward or a negative post-earnings announcement drift for those firms with large negative earnings changes that are least likely to have managed earnings upward. That is, for these firms, there is no evidence of an underreaction to earnings changes. The underreaction is concentrated largely among those firms that are most likely to have smoothed their reported earnings, although this effect has weakened in recent years as investors started paying more attention to the anomalies and hedge funds were focusing on exploiting them. Finally, consistent with the earnings management hypothesis, we also find that the post-earnings announcement drift is generally associated with discretionary (or abnormal) accruals and not with nondiscretionary accruals. These findings reconcile PEAD with the (abnormal) accrual anomaly.

Earnings-Based and Accrual-Based Market Anomalies

Earnings-Based and Accrual-Based Market Anomalies PDF Author: Daniel W. Collins
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 45

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Book Description
This paper investigates whether the accrual pricing anomaly documented by Sloan (1996) for annual data holds for quarterly data and whether this form of market mispricing is distinct from the post-earnings announcement drift anomaly. We find that the market appears to overestimate (underestimate) the persistence of the accrual (cash flow) component of quarterly earnings and, therefore, tends to overprice (underprice) accruals (cash flows). Moreover, the accrual (cash flow) mispricing appears to be distinct from post-earnings announcement drift. A hedge portfolio trading strategy that exploits both forms of market mispricing generates abnormal returns in excess of those based on unexpected earnings, accruals, or cash flow information alone.

Further Investigation of Postannouncement Drifts Associated with Earnings, Cash Flows, and Accrual Adjustments

Further Investigation of Postannouncement Drifts Associated with Earnings, Cash Flows, and Accrual Adjustments PDF Author: Gil Soo Bae
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description


Limited Investor Attention and Stock Market Misreactions to Accounting Information

Limited Investor Attention and Stock Market Misreactions to Accounting Information PDF Author: David A. Hirshleifer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
We provide a model in which a single psychological constraint, limited investor attention, explains both under- and over-reaction to different earnings components. Investor neglect of information in current-period earnings about future earnings induces post-earnings announcement drift and the pro fit anomaly. Neglect of earnings components causes accruals and cash flows to predict abnormal returns. We derive new untested empirical implications relating the strength of the drift, accruals, cash flows, and pro fit anomalies to the forecasting power of current earnings-related information for future earnings, the degree of investor attention to different types of information, and the volatilities of and correlation between accruals and cash flows. We also show that owing to costs of attention, in equilibrium some investors may decide not to attend to the implications of earnings or its components.

Text Analysis of Earnings Press Releases

Text Analysis of Earnings Press Releases PDF Author: Xuan Huang
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781124668666
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
This dissertation includes 3 chapters, which are about text analysis of earnings press releases. Chapter 1 investigates whether managers exercise discretion over how they present in the headline of earnings press releases. I find that on average headline-salient firms have higher earnings or profitable earnings. Further analysis shows that announcement with salient headlines in the earnings press releases are associated with a stronger market reaction on the announcement day and less subsequent drift. These results suggest that headlines can be a tool for perception management. Chapter 2 and 3 investigate whether managers employ tone of earnings press releases for the purpose of perception management. Chapter 2 finds that managers of firms with high abnormal accruals and firms just meeting or beating earnings targets tend to use more positive words in earnings press releases to hype the discretionary accounting numbers. This evidence implies that managers strategically use tone as a complement to earnings management to manage investor perceptions. Chapter 3 explores whether managers use tone in earnings press releases to enhance quantitative financial reporting or to mislead investors. We estimate abnormal positive tone and finds abnormal positive tone is associated with lower future earnings and cash flows from operations, a higher incidence of meeting/beating three types of earnings thresholds, and a higher incidence of future earnings restatements. Tone is also abnormally positive before firms undertake major corporate transactions such as SEO or M & A. Earnings-announcement-date returns increase with abnormal positive tone, controlling for discretionary accruals. Furthermore, instead of PEAD, after earnings announcements with abnormal positive tone there is post-event return reversal.

the nature and amount of information reflected in cash flows and accruals

the nature and amount of information reflected in cash flows and accruals PDF Author: victor l. bernard and thomas l. stober
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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The Accrual Anomaly and Operating Cash Flows

The Accrual Anomaly and Operating Cash Flows PDF Author: Zhaoyang Gu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 47

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Book Description
We argue and show that aggregation of accrual components (changes in inventories, changes in accounts payable, changes in accounts receivable and depreciation expense) into total accruals results in a loss of mispricing-related information in individual accrual components. This motivates us to examine whether the recent evidence that operating cash flows subsume the mispricing effect associated with total accruals holds when accruals are disaggregated into accrual components. We find that accrual components are associated with future abnormal returns even after controlling for operating cash flows and growth. The three-day earnings announcement period abnormal returns also support the finding. The evidence with respect to change in accounts payable is especially noteworthy because its inclusion in total accruals reduces the mispricing effects of other components considerably. Overall, the prior evidence that operating cash flows subsume the mispricing effects associated with total accruals is likely caused by the aggregation of accrual components into total accruals. Future research would benefit from focusing on accrual components rather than total accruals.

Accounting Anomalies and Information Uncertainty

Accounting Anomalies and Information Uncertainty PDF Author: Jennifer Francis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 57

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Book Description
We examine whether rational investor responses to information uncertainty explain properties of and returns to accounting-based trading anomalies. We proxy for information uncertainty with two measures of earnings quality: the standard deviation of the residuals from a Dechow and Dichev [2002] model relating accruals to cash flows, and the absolute value of performance-adjusted abnormal accruals from a modified Jones [1991] model. Over 1982-2001, we find that accounting-based trading anomalies (post-earnings announcement drift, value-glamour, and accruals strategies) are correlated with earnings quality. Specifically, extreme anomaly portfolios have poorer earnings quality than non-extreme portfolios, and within the extreme anomaly portfolios, poor earnings quality securities are more prevalent and earn larger abnormal returns than good earnings quality securities. Consistent with greater resolution of uncertainty for poor earnings quality securities, the abnormal returns to poor quality securities converge to the abnormal returns to good quality securities as the post-portfolio formation period lengthens. Taken as a whole, these results indicate that information uncertainty plays an important role in explaining accounting anomalies.

Analysts' Use of Accruals and Cash Flows in Forecasting Earnings

Analysts' Use of Accruals and Cash Flows in Forecasting Earnings PDF Author: Ramesh Narayana Chari
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
This research investigates whether financial analysts fully incorporate the information contained in accrual and cash flow components of current earnings when forecasting future earnings. I present evidence that analysts fail to fully incorporate the implications of these components for earnings persistence in their forecasts. Analysts' appear to ignore information in past earnings to a greater extent when the magnitude of accruals in prior year earnings is large relative to cash flows. I find that information in these components can be used to improve analysts' forecasts. This improvement is most evident for firms which have a high incidence of accruals in prior year earnings. I demonstrate the economic significance of improving analysts' forecasts by implementing a trading strategy that predicts stock price changes. This trading strategy yields significantly positive risk-adjusted abnormal returns. These results suggest that analysts' forecasting inefficiency (see Mendenhall, 1991) is potentially rooted in their misperceptions about the implications of accruals and cash flows for earnings persistence. These findings are useful to accounting standard-setters and to capital markets research that uses analysts' forecasts to proxy for earnings expectations.