The Fair Value of Cash Flow Hedges,Future Profitability,and Stock Returns

The SEC and FASB recently expressed concerns that investors do not fully assimilate all of the information provided by complex and incomplete derivatives and other comprehensive income (OCI) disclosures. My evidence supports these concerns. Specifically, I examine the information content of unrealized cash flow hedge gains/losses for future profitability and stock returns. An unrealized gain on a cash flow hedge suggests that the price of the underlying hedged item (i.e., commodity price, foreign currency exchange rate, or interest rate) moved in a direction that will impair the firm's profits after the hedge expires. Consequently, I find that unrealized cash flow hedge gains/losses are negatively associated with future gross profit after the firm's existing hedges have expired. This association only holds after the firm has reclassified its hedges into earnings, and is weaker for firms that can pass input price changes on to their customers. Finally, investors do not immediately price the cash flow hedge information. Instead, investors appear surprised by future realizations of gross margin, consistent with the view that complex and incomplete disclosures delay pricing. These results are relevant to policymakers involved in the current FASB and IASB project designed to simplify the accounting and disclosure for derivatives and, in particular, cash flow hedges.     

The Use of Trade Association Disclosures by Investors and Analysts: Evidence from the Semiconductor Industry*

This paper investigates the relation between industry-wide information disclosures by the trade association for the semiconductor industry and both share prices and analyst forecasts. Such disclosures may have little impact on investors and analysts, since prior theoretical research suggests that trade associations may be unable to secure reliable data from firms in an industry. At the same time, such disclosures may be important, since prior empirical research suggests that share prices and analyst forecasts reflect industry-wide earnings effects earlier than firm-specific effects. We document significant stock price movements on release dates of industry Flash Reports by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) each month that contain aggregate industry data on new orders and shipments. The magnitude of the price revisions on Flash Report disclosure dates is positively associated with changes in the numbers disclosed and varies across sample firms in a manner associated with identifiable characteristics of the firms. Further tests indicate that the Flash Report provides mainly forward-looking information on new orders that is linked to firm-specific sales changes and has explanatory power for quarterly stock prices beyond firm-specific earnings. This information is used by security analysts mainly in assessing the persistence of firm-specific quarterly sales changes. Our findings support the hypothesis that the SIA is able to obtain data from firms, compile it into reliable aggregate statistics, and then distribute these statistics in a timely fashion.     

On Constructing an EPS Measure: An Assessment of the Properties of Dilution*

This paper evaluates the information content of the treasury stock method for computing diluted earnings per share (EPS). We demonstrate that the treasury stock method decreases the annual association between earnings changes and stock returns and explain why this is the case. Further, we show that the treasury stock method leads to a dilutive adjustment that biases the random walk model of annual earnings in a predictable direction. Finally, we demonstrate that using the treasury stock method appears to confuse both analysts and investors: analysts' forecast errors increase with the size of the dilutive adjustment, and the association between unexpected earnings and stock returns at the earnings announcement date weakens as the dilutive adjustment increases.     

Commitment and Cost of Equity Capital: An Examination of Timely Balance Sheet Disclosure in Earnings Announcements

In this paper, I examine the relation between disclosure commitment and cost of equity capital using accelerated earnings announcement disclosures as a measure of commitment. In settings characterized by imperfect market competition, I find that firms which consistently disclose balance sheet detail in relatively timely earnings announcements have lower costs of capital compared to other firms. This result is statistically significant and economically meaningful, and is robust to various alternative measurements for cost of capital, and alternative designs addressing endogeneity and underlying information quality. Overall, this result is important because it highlights additional dimensions of disclosure commitment (consistency and timeliness), while incorporating important features from theoretical models (information quality and market competition). In particular, my results suggest that consistency and timeliness are salient features of firms' disclosure behavior that have predictable and robust relations with capital market outcomes. This result is robust to controlling for underlying information quality; however, consistent with theory, it is conditional on low levels of market competition.     

Accounting Policy Disclosures and Analysts' Forecasts

Using an international sample, I investigate whether the extent of firms' disclosure of their accounting policies in the annual report is associated with properties of analysts' earnings forecasts. Controlling for firm‐ and country‐level variables, I find that the level of accounting policy disclosure is significantly negatively related to forecast dispersion and forecast error. In particular, I find that accounting policy disclosures are incrementally useful to analysts over and above all other annual report disclosures. These findings suggest that accounting policy disclosures reduce uncertainty about forecasted earnings. I find univariate but not multivariate support for the hypothesis that accounting policy disclosures are especially helpful to analysts in environments where firms can choose among a larger set of accounting methods.     

Analysts’ Use of Nonfinancial Information Disclosures*

In this study I examine how analysts process nonfinancial information and how this is affected by the patterns of firms’ nonfinancial information disclosures. More specifically, I examine the association between analyst earnings forecast errors and the persistence of nonfinancial disclosures, both across information content and over time. The study focuses on firms in the wireless industry for the period 1997–2007. The results show that analysts tend to underreact to the information contained in customer acquisition cost, average revenue per user, and the number of subscribers. These are the performance measures that have significant predictive ability for future earnings of wireless firms. Distinguishing between firms on the basis of their nonfinancial disclosure patterns reveals that the above findings are driven primarily by firms with irregular disclosures. There is no evidence of analysts’ inefficiency in evaluating the content of nonfinancial metrics provided by persistently disclosing firms. This implies that the lack of systematic disclosures of performance measures restricts financial analysts’ ability to fully analyze the contributions of these metrics for future earnings.     

Are Investors Misled by “Pro Forma” Earnings?*

This paper uses stock market data to investigate the popular claim that investors are misled by the “pro forma” earnings numbers conspicuously featured in the press releases of some U.S. firms. We first document the frequency and magnitude of pro forma earnings in press releases issued during June through August 2000, and describe the 433 firms that engaged in this financial disclosure strategy. Our test period predates public expressions of concern by trade associations and regulators that pro forma earnings may mislead investors and the subsequent issuance of guidelines and rules on the disclosure of pro forma earnings numbers. We use two complementary approaches to determine whether the share prices that investors assign to pro forma firms are systematically higher than the prices assigned to other firms. Our market‐multiples tests for differences in price levels find some evidence suggesting that pro forma firms may be priced higher than firms that do not use the disclosure strategy. This apparent overpricing is not, however, related to the pro forma earnings numbers themselves. Our narrow‐window stock returns tests reveal no evidence of a stock return premium for pro forma firms at the quarterly earnings announcement date. Collectively, the results cast doubt on the notion that investors are, on average, misled by pro forma earnings disclosures despite the widespread concern expressed in the financial press and by regulators.     

Voluntary Disclosures When There Is an Option to Delay Disclosure

What incentives drive managers to disclose immediately when they have an option to delay disclosures? I examine this question in a two-period setting in which public news that is positively correlated with firm value arrives periodically. I show that, when the manager's likelihood of receiving information is independent of the public news, an informed manager is more likely to disclose immediately when the public news is good. This happens even as the disclosure threshold itself increases in the public news. My model provides a potential explanation for why managers have a higher propensity to provide earnings forecasts when current earnings are high. I also show that, even when disclosures are credible, the average price reaction to a voluntary disclosure is (i) decreasing in the magnitude of the public news and (ii) lower when the manager is more myopic. These results have potential implications for studies that use stock returns to measure the news contained in management disclosures.     

信息技术类上市公司财务危机预警实证研究

以沪、深A股2008-2012年28家信息技术类上市公司为研究样本,利用ST公司财务危机前3年的数据初步选用21个初始预警变量;从样本的信息显著性和重复性出发,采用因子分析法等方法筛选基础预警指标,最终确定净资产增长率、净利润增长率、技术人员比率等8个指标作为模型初始变量;接着运用Logistic回归分析构建财务危机预警模型。该模型仅针对信息技术类上市公司,对公司发生财务危机前的财务状况的拟合度较高,具有较强的适用性与指导性。     

An Investigation of the Value Relevance of Alternative Foreign Exchange Disclosures*

We demonstrate analytically and empirically that valuing a firm with foreign operations in the presence of exchange rate uncertainty requires information on the foreign operating cash flows disaggregated by currency and persistence. In particular, given consolidated earnings, investors need information on the exchange gain or loss on permanent foreign operating cash flows. We extend the model to show how the permanent foreign cash flows can be used to condition the change in the translation adjustment to make it value‐relevant; however, using the permanent foreign cash flows directly is superior for valuation purposes. The empirical tests support our hypothesis that the market response to exchange rate movements is sensitive to the relative magnitudes of revenues and costs denominated in each foreign currency in which a firm has transactions. Disclosure of cash flows by currency should enhance the valuation of firms with foreign operations.     

An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between Cash Flow and Dividend Changes in Nigeria

The purpose of this study is to re‐evaluate the incremental information content of cash flows in explaining dividend changes, given earnings. I carry out an 882 firm‐year study by analysing the dividend changes‐cash flow relationship on a sample of 63 quoted firms in Nigeria over a wider testing period from 1984 to 1997. Despite the fact that I used a wider testing period than previous studies and more refined cash flow measures than previous studies, I also introduced dummy variables to capture economic policy changes in the economy. The association of cash flows with dividend changes is tested using the modified Lintner‐Brittain model as adopted in Charitou and Vafeas (1998) on pooled cross sectional/time series data from the full sample of observations from 1984‐97. The models are estimated using the ordinary least squares (OLS) method and I do find a significant relationship between dividend changes and cash flow unlike previous studies. The empirical results reveal that the relationship between cash flows and dividend changes depend substantially on the level of growth, the capital structure choice, size of each firm and economic policy changes.     

Voluntary Interim Disclosure by Early 20th Century NYSE Industrials*

Abstract. This paper examines stock market behavior associated with interim earnings and marketing-production disclosures by NYSE industrial corporations during 1905–10. Mean stock price changes are examined to assess whether these firms were more likely to disclose favorable information. We also examine the magnitude of price changes and trading volume to provide evidence on the credibility of these disclosures as perceived by investors. The sample and time period we examine enable us to evaluate the stock market effects of interim disclosures in a discretionary disclosure environment. We find no evidence that these firms were more likely to selectively disclose favorable interim information based on contemporaneous stock price changes. Also, no significant differences are detected in the incidence of interim disclosure before dividend or annual earnings increases compared to dividend cuts/omissions or annual earnings declines. We also document increased trading volume in the announcement week and prior weeks, but significant price changes are restricted to the preannouncement period. These results are driven by firms that do not frequently disclose interim information, and these firms' disclosures are frequently accompanied by concurrent news items (in particular, new financings). Price and volume results are weakly sensitive to the exclusion of cases with concurrent news items. Collectively, our results suggest no systematic tendency to disclose favorable information and managerial disclosures were at least partially credible in the early 20th century disclosure environment. Résumé. Les auteurs examinent la réaction du marché des valeurs mobilières à la publication d'information périodique relative aux bénéfices ainsi qu'à la production et au marketing, par les sociétés industrielles dont les titres étaient inscrits à la Bourse de New York durant la période 1905–1910 et s'intéressent aux variations du cours moyen des titres, afin d'évaluer si ces sociétés étaient davantage enclines à publier de l'information favorable. Ils examinent également l'ampleur des variations du cours des titres et du volume des opérations afin d'établir comment les investisseurs percevaient la crédibilité de l'information publiée. Les variations du cours des titres observées à l'époque ne permettent pas de conclure que ces sociétés étaient davantage enclines à sélectionner l'information périodique la plus favorable, et les auteurs ne détectent pas non plus de différences significatives dans les conséquences de la publication d'information périodique préalablement à des hausses de dividendes ou de bénéfices annuels, par rapport à des réductions ou des omissions de dividendes ou des diminutions des bénéfices annuels. Dans l'ensemble, les résultats portent à croire qu'il n'y a pas de tendance systématique à la publication d'information favorable, et que l'information publiée par la direction est au moins en partie crédible dans le contexte du début du XX^e siècle.     

The reaction of Canadian securities to revisions of earnings forecasts*

Abstract. This first study of Canadian securities' earnings forecasts published by Institutional Brokers Estimate System (IBES) focuses on changes in the mean earnings per share forecasts of 159 to 188 companies from 1985 to 1987. Cumulative average residuals are used to detect the announcement effects of large earnings forecast revisions. The main results of this study are the following. First, an investor with access to changes of earnings per share forecasts at the beginning of the month of publication could realize abnormal excess returns. Second, trading strategies based on earnings forecasts revisions can also yield abnormal returns, but the magnitude of the revision, the sector of the company, and the month in which the revision is realized must be considered. Third, when financial analysts' forecasts are published, the informational content of large revisions in forecasts has already been discounted by the market. This result is similar to findings of U.S.– and U.K.–based studies. Finally, large forecasts revisions coincide with a period of abnormal returns. However, the information content of the announcement of forecasts changes cannot be established. The gains are larger if the trade is undertaken before the diffusion of the forecast revision to the IBES subscribers. These results do not vary with the model chosen to predict company returns. This does not necessarily indicate the existence of a market inefficiency because information acquisition and analysis costs, as well as transaction costs, may diminish considerably these abnormal trading gains.     

The effect of sales and collection disclosures on cash flow forecasting and income smoothing*

Abstract. Based on a model of sales and collection events of a firm, this paper analyzes the effect of different levels of disclosures about the two events on cash flow forecasting and income smoothing. A comparison of disclosure of credit sales from the sales accrual method and disclosure of cash collection from the cash collection (installment) method shows that when cash flows occur in a period subsequent to sales realization, the cash flow forecasts from earnings based on the sales accrual method are superior to forecasts from earnings based on cash collection. This is because the sales accrual method provides information on management's expectations about future cash flows. The analysis also shows that, for a similar reason, earnings based on the sales accrual method can be expected to be generally smoother than earnings based on the cash collection method. The model is also examined through a simulation study of a firm for a variety of parameter values. Résumé. Fondé sur un modèle des événements de vente et de recouvrement d'une société, cet article analyse l'effet de divers niveaux de divulgation de ces deux événements sur la prévision de trésorerie et le lissage des bénéfices. Une comparaison de la divulgation des ventes à crédit selon la méthode de comptabilité d'exercice et de la divulgation des recouvrements selon la méthode de la constatation des profits au prorata des encaissements, montre que lorsque les flux monétaires se produisent dans un exercice postérieur à la constatation des ventes, les prévisions de trésorerie fondées sur les résultats produits par la méthode de comptabilité d'exercice, sont supérieures aux prévisions fondées sur les résultats issus de la méthode de constatation du profit au prorata des encaissements. Ceci est attribuable au fait que la méthode de comptabilité d'exercice fournit de l'information sur les prévisions de la direction au sujet des flux monétaires futurs. L'analyse montre également, pour des raisons similaires, que les résultats produits par la méthode de comptabilité d'exercice seront probablement plus nivelés que les résultats générés par la méthode de constatation du profit au prorata des encaissements. Le modèle est en outre examiné par l'entremise d'une étude de simulation d'une société pour différentes valeurs attribuées aux paramètres.     

Customer Concentration and Public Disclosure: Evidence from Management Earnings and Sales Forecasts

This study examines the association between customer base concentration and corporate public disclosure policy. When the customer base is more concentrated, large customers face lower costs of accessing the supplier firm's private information, reducing customers' overall demand for the supplier's public information, suggesting a negative association between customer concentration and the amount of public disclosure. Alternatively, large customers have greater bargaining power and may demand that the supplier firm provide more public disclosures. Consistent with customer concentration facilitating private information flow from the supplier to customers, we find that the frequencies of management earnings and sales forecasts are negatively associated with customer concentration among firms with major corporate customers. These associations are stronger when the supplier and customers are engaged in more relationship-specific investments, when customers' private information acquisition costs are lower, and when it is less costly for customers to find another supplier.     

Accounting Information and CEO Compensation: The Role of Cash Flow from Operations in the Presence of Earnings*

We examine the role of cash flow from operations (CFO) in chief executive officer (CEO) cash compensation. We predict that CFO is contract‐relevant in the presence of earnings, and more so when (1) the quality of earnings relative to the quality of CFO as a measure of performance is low and (2) the need for CFO as a financing source is high. Our analysis is motivated principally by normative arguments and anecdotes from financial disclosures linking CFO to managerial effort and contracts, notwithstanding the traditional role of earnings in performance measurement. We find that the weight of CFO in the compensation model is positive and significant in the presence of earnings and stock returns. We also find that the relative quality of CFO compared with that of earnings has a positive (negative) impact on the weight of CFO (earnings). We further find that the relative weight of CFO is enhanced substantially when enterprise activities crucially depend on internally generated cash flow. These findings are unaltered when we include CEO age, firm size, and risk in the model and allow the coefficients to vary across industries.     

A Comparison of Dividend,Cash Flow,and Earnings Approaches to Equity Valuation*

Standard formulas for valuing the equity of going concerns require forecasting payoffs to infinity but practical analysis requires that payoffs be forecasted over finite horizons. This truncation inevitably involves often-troublesome terminal value calculations. This paper contrasts dividend discount techniques, discounted cash flow analysis, and techniques based on accrual earnings when each is applied with finite-horizon forecasts. Valuations based on average ex post payoffs over various horizons, with and without terminal value calculations, are compared with ex ante market prices to discover the error introduced by each technique in truncating the horizon. Valuation errors are lower using accrual earnings techniques rather than cash flow and dividend discounting techniques. The accounting features that make a given technique less than ideal for finite horizon analysis are also detailed. Conditions where a given technique requires particularly long forecasting horizons are identified and the performance of the alternative techniques under those conditions is examined.     

The Incremental Informativeness of Stock Prices for Future Accounting Earnings*

This study extends previous research that documents a stock price reaction leading accounting earnings. The primary issue is that prior studies use a naive earnings expectation model (random walk) as the benchmark for the information content of lagged returns and do not adequately address the “incremental” information content of lagged returns. This study identifies and estimates firm-specific models of earnings to control directly for the autocorrelation in earnings. The explanatory power of lagged prices with respect to this earnings residual is investigated using both a multiple regression model of lagged returns and a multiple time-series vector autoregressive model. In-sample estimation of the models provides clear evidence that stock prices impound information about future earnings incremental to the information contained in historical earnings data. Holdout period analysis of the earnings forecasts from these lagged return models finds that both models outperform the naive seasonal random walk expectation, but neither model outperforms the more sophisticated Box-Jenkins forecasts. On an individual firm basis, earnings forecasts supplemented with the lagged return data tend to be less precise than the Box-Jenkins forecasts, but the price-based models demonstrate an ability to rank the earnings forecast errors from the time-series models. The analysis helps to characterize the limitations of lagged returns as a means of predicting future earnings innovations.     

Accounting Conservatism and the Temporal Trends in Current Earnings’ Ability to Predict Future Cash Flows versus Future Earnings: Evidence on the Trade‐off between Relevance and Reliability*

This research reports that an increasing level of accounting conservatism over the 1973–2005 period is associated with: (1) an increase in the ability of current earnings to predict future cash flows and (2) a decrease in the ability of current earnings to predict future earnings. We also find that usefulness of earnings for explaining stock prices over book values is positively related to reliability but not to relevance. Our results hold for the constant and full samples in both in‐sample and out‐of‐sample analyses and are robust to the use of alternative measures for relevance, reliability, earnings usefulness, and conservatism. Our findings about the relations among conservatism, relevance, reliability, and usefulness suggest a trade‐off between relevance and reliability and seem to indicate that the adoption of an increasing number of conservative accounting standards has a possible adverse impact on earnings usefulness through a negative effect on reliability.     

The Informational Effects of Tightening Oil and Gas Disclosure Rules

We exploit two regulatory shocks to examine the informational effects of tightening preexisting mandatory disclosure rules. Canadian National Instrument 51-101 in 2003 and the U.S. rule “Modernization of Oil and Gas Reporting” in 2009 introduced quasi-identical amendments which effectively tightened the rules governing oil and gas reserve disclosures in both countries. We document significant changes in firms' reporting outcomes when the new regulations are introduced. We also find that the reserve disclosures filed under the new regulations are more closely associated with stock price changes and with decreases in bid-ask spreads. Our findings are robust to controlling for other confounding factors such as time trends, other information disclosed simultaneously, financial reporting incentives, mispricing, and monitoring efforts.