The Effect of Limited Liability on the Informativeness of Earnings: Evidence from the Stock and Bond Markets*

Previous empirical research on the informativeness of earnings has focused on stockholders, and has not examined differences in earnings' informativeness for stockholders and bondholders. Because stockholders are residual claimants and bondholders are fixed claimants, the informativeness of earnings should differ for these two types of investors. When a firm's default risk is low, changes in its financial condition should be of limited relevance to bondholders, but should be relevant to stockholders. In contrast, as the likelihood of financial distress increases, stockholders' limited liability allows them to abandon the firm to the bondholders (Fischer and Verrecchia 1997). Accordingly, as a firm's default risk increases, changes in its financial condition should be increasingly important to bondholders and less important to shareholders. Because earnings provide information on firm value, the stock return-earnings association should decrease as the firm's financial strength declines, while the bond return-earnings association should increase. We use two measures of a firm's financial strength: the firm's bond rating and its reporting of a loss. Consistent with our hypotheses, we find that the association between stock returns and changes in annual earnings decreases as bond ratings decline, while the association between bond returns and changes in annual earnings increases. These results suggest that as the company's financial condition deteriorates, earnings become less relevant for stock valuation and more relevant for bond valuation. When we partition firms based on their loss status, we find a stronger association between stock returns and annual earnings changes for firms with positive earnings (profit firms) than for firms with losses, consistent with earlier studies. In contrast, we find that the association between bond returns and earnings changes is greater for loss firms than for profit firms. These results suggest that losses reduce the informativeness of earnings for stockholders but increase informativeness for bondholders, suggesting that investors view losses as indicating increased credit risk.     

The Relative and Incremental Explanatory Power of Earnings and Alternative (to Earnings) Performance Measures for Returns*

We analyze the ability of earnings and non‐earnings performance metrics to explain the variability in annual stock returns for industries where we identify, ex ante, an allegedly preferred (for valuation purposes) summary performance metric. We identify three industries where earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and cash from operations (CFO) are preferred, and three industries where specific non‐GAAP performance metrics are preferred. As a benchmark, we also examine the ability of EBITDA and CFO to explain returns for seven industries for which earnings is the preferred metric. Results for the benchmark earnings industries show that earnings dominates EBITDA and CFO in explaining returns. All other results are inconsistent with the view that perceptions of preferred metrics are reflected in actual aggregate investment behaviors.     

上市公司之企业规模与资本结构的关系研究——以新疆上市公司为例

国内外很多研究成果表明,企业的发展规模与其资本结构之间存在着十分紧密的关系,于是我以新疆上市公司为样本,利用其相关数据建立起新疆上市公司的资本结构和公司规模的线性回归模型,以定量的分析方法来阐述他们之间的这种联系。回归结果表明新疆上市公司的公司规模与负债水平呈正相关,与企业的经营能力负相关,与每股收益呈正相关的关系。在实证分析结果的基础上,所以新疆企业要走出去西部,走向世界,就应从资本结构和公司规模相结合的角度制定企业战略,建设出一流的企业。     

内部控制质量与盈余持续性关系研究

近年来我国证券法规的不断调整和完善使得市场信息逐渐透明化,上市公司披露的报告中呈现出的信息质量如何,以及公司内部建设能否带来正的效应呢?通过采用不同样本形式多角度地研究上市公司的盈余持续性,得出上市公司盈余信息质量普遍较高的证据。内控质量的引入探讨了上市公司已建立的内控现状,且实证检验结果中,混合样本和部分年度数据证实了内控质量低时盈余持续性较低,而没能验证内控质量高的公司所反映的高盈余持续性。     

Why Do Large Firms' Prices Anticipate Earnings Earlier than Small Firms' Prices?*

This paper presents evidence that the positive association between firm size and price leads of earnings is not solely a function of private search incentives for firm‐specific information. Specifically, we find that small‐firm prices also lag large‐firm prices with respect to industry‐wide information. Our empirical analysis extends Collins, Kothari, and Rayburn 1987 and Freeman 1987, who document that security‐price leads of earnings are positively associated with market capitalization. In particular, we examine the association between firm size and the timing of security returns for two components of annual earnings changes: the average change for a firm's industry and the firm's idiosyncratic change. We find that large firms' prices have a longer lead than small firms' prices with respect to both components. Large firms' early lead on industry‐wide earnings suggests that returns of large firms predict returns of same‐industry small firms. To test this implication, we construct a portfolio of long (short) positions in small firms when the prior month's returns of large firms in their industry are above (below) average for large firms in other industries. This zero investment portfolio earns 4.5 percent over 12 months.     

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.     

Are Fundamentals Priced in the Bond Market?*

To date, the discussion of the Lev and Thiagarajan 1993 fundamentals in the prior literature has been exclusively in the context of the stock market. Our study is the first to examine the value‐relevance of these fundamentals for default risk. By focusing on the market for new bond issues, we examine the value‐relevance of the fundamental score using expected rather than realized returns. Also, by focusing on the bond market we provide a different perspective than that brought by prior studies relying solely on stock prices. We find the fundamentals to be priced in the market for new bond issues as indicators of expected future earnings and to be value‐relevant in enabling the market to discern differences in bond credit quality over and above the published bond ratings.     

Determinants of Managerial Earnings Guidance Prior to Regulation Fair Disclosure and Bias in Analysts' Earnings Forecasts*

Prior to Regulation Fair Disclosure (“Reg FD”), some management privately guided analyst earnings estimates, often through detailed reviews of analysts' earnings models. In this paper I use proprietary survey data from the National Investor Relations Institute to identify firms that reviewed analysts' earnings models prior to Reg FD and those that did not. Under the maintained assumption that firms conducting reviews guided analysts' earnings forecasts, I document firm characteristics associated with the decision to provide private earnings guidance. Then I document the characteristics of “guided” versus “unguided” analyst earnings forecasts. Findings demonstrate an association between several firm characteristics and guidance practices: managers are more likely to review analyst earnings models when the firm's stock is highly followed by analysts and largely held by institutions, when the firm's market‐to‐book ratio is high, and its earnings are important to valuation but hard to predict because its business is complex. A comparison of guided and unguided quarterly forecasts indicates that guided analyst estimates are more accurate, but also more frequently pessimistic. An examination of analysts' annual earnings forecasts over the fiscal year does not distinguish between guidance and no‐guidance firms; both experience a “walk‐down” in annual estimates. To distinguish between guidance and no‐guidance firms, one must examine quarterly earnings news: unguided analysts walk down their annual estimates when the majority of the quarterly earnings news is negative; guided analysts walk down their annual estimates even though the majority of the quarterly earnings news is positive.     

大股东控制与盈余管理行为研究:来自配股公司的证据

在上市公司配股融资过程中，大股东具有通过盈余管理来获得配股资格和提高股票价格的强烈动机。本文以1998—2002年间456家实施配股的上市公司为样本，基于行业横截面数据和修正的Jones模型研究了配股融资过程中盈余管理的分布特征，并分析了大股东控制对盈余管理行为的影响。研究结果表明：（1）上市公司在配股前3个年度和配股当年存在显著的盈余管理机会主义行为；（2）配股公司的盈余管理程度与第一大股东持股比例具有倒u型关系：当第一大股东持股比例低于53．20％时表现出正相关关系，而当第一大股东持股比例高于53．20％时则表现出负相关关系；（3）盈余管理程度与前2—10大股东持股集中度、负债比率和资本支出水平之间具有负相关关系．而与管理层持股比例和公司规模之间具有正相关关系。大股东通过盈余管理实现了对小股东财富的掠夺效应。造成了上市公司价值、声誉和后续融资能力的下降。     

The Relation between Aggregate Earnings and Security Returns over Long Intervals*

This paper provides a theoretical explanation and consistent empirical evidence for the increase in the contemporaneous correlation between returns and aggregate earnings as the return interval is lengthened. Consistent with intuition and with Easton, Harris, and Ohlson 1992, the analysis shows that aggregation over time renders the lag in accounting recognition relatively less important and thus improves the returns‐earnings R². Interestingly, the analysis also reveals that aggregating earnings over longer periods increases the positive covariance between aggregate earnings and the accounting lag, which may further increase the R². This positive covariance can lead to an earnings coefficient greater than one over some range of aggregation, which is consistent with the findings of Easton et al. that over the 10‐year interval the returns‐earnings regression slope coefficient is greater than one (1.7). The empirical results highlight the fact that the slope coefficient, which is greater than one and increasing with the interval, accounts for much of the increment to the returns‐earnings R². In fact, constraining the slope coefficient to be one results in an R² of 11 percent for the 10‐year interval, which is considerably lower than the R² of 47 percent when the regression is unconstrained. Hence, the positive covariance between current earnings and the accounting lag, rather than the diminishing effect of the accounting lag, appears to be the dominant explanation for the observed high R² over long intervals.     

Information content of Canadian oil and gas companies' historic cost earnings and reserves disclosures*

Abstract. The purpose of this paper is to determine which of three alternative annual report disclosures of oil and gas reserves, namely historic capitalized costs, quantities, or discounted cash flows, contributes information content incremental to that provided by earnings per share. Information content is defined as the ability of a reserves disclosure to account for changes in common stock prices. Multiple regression analysis was used to evaluate the extent to which each of the three alternative reserves disclosures account for common stock returns after first recognizing the information provided by an earnings per share variable. The annual reports of 67 Canadian oil and gas exploration and development corporations were used to gather the data for each of the years 1983 to 1987. The results indicate that the earnings per share provides some significant evidence of information content. The capitalized costs disclosure, the quantities disclosure, and the discounted cash flows disclosure provide significant evidence of incremental information content in a pooled analysis of the five-year period; however, the results for any one disclosure method are not consistent throughout the analyses of each of the five years.     

Institutional Ownership and the Extent to which Stock Prices Reflect Future Earnings*

Articles in the financial press suggest that institutional investors are overly focused on current profitability, which suggests that as institutional ownership increases, stock prices reflect less current period information that is predictive of future period earnings. On the other hand, institutional investors are often characterized in academic research as sophisticated investors and sophisticated investors should be better able to use current‐period information to predict future earnings compared with other owners. According to this characterization, as institutional ownership increases, stock prices should reflect more current‐period information that is predictive of future period earnings. Consistent with this latter view, we find that the extent to which stock prices lead earnings is positively related to the percentage of institutional ownership. This result holds after controlling for various factors that affect the relation between price and earnings. It also holds when we control for endogenous portfolio choices of institutions (e.g., institutional investors may be attracted to firms in richer information environments where stock prices tend to lead earnings). Further, a regression of stock returns on order backlog, conditional on the percentage of institutional ownership, indicates that institutional owners place more weight on order backlog compared with other owners. This result is consistent with institutional owners using non‐earnings information to predict future earnings. It also explains, in part, why prices lead earnings to a greater extent when there is a higher concentration of institutional owners.     

Empirical evidence of a positive inflation premium being incorporated into stock prices

This study demonstrates that in contrast to prior research findings on short-term stock returns, long-term stock returns are positively correlated with inflation. In addition, within the context of a more complete explanatory model, long-term stock returns are found to be negatively related to changes in long-term interest rates and negatively related to beginning price to earnings ratios. The significance of these variables in explaining almost all the time series variation in long-term stock returns demonstrates that changes in stock values are well explained by theory.     

The Effect of Short Selling on Market Reactions to Earnings Announcements*

This paper examines the effect of the inherent demand implied by short interest by studying how stock price reactions to earnings announcements depend on the level of short interest. We find that, for extreme good and bad news events, the inherent demand increases stock prices around the earnings announcement date, with the effect being stronger for good news relative to bad news. Specifically, the initial market reaction to an extreme positive earnings surprise is larger for firms with high levels of short interest. On the other hand, for an extreme negative earnings surprise event, the initial market reaction is less negative for heavily shorted firms. Furthermore, we find that the post‐earnings‐announcement drift is smaller (larger) in magnitude for extreme positive (negative) earnings surprises for the heavily shorted firms.     

Financial Statement Comparability and the Informativeness of Stock Prices About Future Earnings

We find that financial statement comparability enhances the ability of current period returns to reflect future earnings, as measured by the future earnings response coefficient (FERC). This suggests that comparability improves the informativeness of stock prices and allows investors to better anticipate future firm performance. In addition, using both the FERC and stock price synchronicity tests, we find that comparability increases the amount of firm‐specific information (rather than market/industry‐level information) reflected in stock prices. Analysts play an important role in improving stock price informativeness by producing more firm‐specific information when comparability is high. These findings suggest that comparability lowers the costs of gathering and processing firm‐specific information.     

Determinants of the Time Series of Earnings and Implications for Earnings Quality*

This paper examines whether differences in accrual accounting methods across balance sheet accounts influence the time‐series process of earnings. We define earnings quality as the responsiveness of earnings to shifts in permanent earnings and predict that responsiveness will increase in a firm's use of variable rate debt, where accruals move directly with shifts in interest rates. We also predict that responsiveness will decrease in a firm's investment in property plant and equipment because depreciation is largely predetermined and does not respond to shifts in opportunity costs. </P><P>To test these hypotheses, we regress earnings on lagged earnings and a proxy for permanent earnings (that is, the implied dividend annuity in lagged equity value). Within the context of an adjustment cost model, this regression captures the responsiveness of earnings by the coefficient on lagged price and by one minus the coefficient on lagged earnings. Consistent with this framework, we find the unconstrained estimated coefficients on these two variables to be negatively correlated. Furthermore, consistent with our hypotheses, we find that the coefficient on lagged earnings (lagged price) is positively (negatively) associated with the relative magnitude and life of fixed assets on the balance sheet and negatively (positively) associated with the relative magnitude of variable rate debt on the balance sheet.</P>     

Investors' Misweighting of Firm-Level Information and the Market's Expectations of Earnings

Prior studies use fundamental earnings forecasts to proxy for the market's expectations of earnings because analyst forecasts are biased and are available for only a subset of firms. We find that as a proxy for market expectations, fundamental forecasts contain systematic measurement errors analogous to those in analysts' biased forecasts. Therefore, these forecasts are not representative of investors' beliefs. The systematic measurement errors from using fundamental forecasts to proxy for market expectations occur because investors misweight the information in many firm-level variables when estimating future earnings, but fundamental forecasts are formed using the historically efficient weights on firm-level variables. Thus, we develop an alternative ex ante proxy for the market's expectations of future earnings (“the implied market forecast”) using the historical (and inefficient) weights, as reflected in stock returns, that the market places on firm-level variables. A trading strategy based on the implied market forecast error, which is measured as the difference between the implied market forecast and the fundamental forecast, generates excess returns of approximately 9 percent per year. These returns cannot be explained by investors' reliance on analysts' biased forecasts. Overall, our results reveal that market expectations differ from both fundamental forecasts and analysts' forecasts.     

The Association between Changes in Interest Rates,Earnings, and Equity Values*

Numerous studies have documented that stock returns are negatively related to changes in interest rates, but there has been little corroborating research on the information in interest‐rate changes about the fundamentals that the stock market prices. The negative correlation is often attributed to changes in the discount rate, a denominator effect in a valuation model. However, there may also be a numerator effect on the expected payoffs that are discounted. This paper shows that changes in interest rates are positively related to subsequent earnings, but the change in earnings is typically not large enough to cover the change in the required return. Hence, the net (numerator and denominator) effect on equity value is negative, consistent with the results of the research on interest rates and stock returns.     

新闻报道是否会影响证券分析师盈利预测分歧——基于信息“噪声”的视角

文章以上市公司的百度新闻报道条数作为新闻报道指标,选择中国A股市场1776家股票作为研究对象,以2004-2012年为样本区间,实证检验上市公司新闻报道对证券分析师盈利预测分歧的作用及其影响机理,结果发现:上市公司的新闻报道与分析师预测分歧之间呈现显著的正相关关系;研究结论支持新闻报道本身含有大量"噪声"成分的解释,而不支持分析师"过度自信"的心理偏差的解释。     

投资者是否被上市公司的盈余管理行为所误导?——来自配股融资的证据

为了获得配股资格和提高配股价格，上市公司具有通过调整异常应计利润来提升报告盈余的强烈动机。本文使用横截面修正的Jones模型研究了配股公司盈余管理的时间序列分布特征．并分析了异常应计利润与配股后运营业绩和股票长期收益的关系。研究结果表明，配股公司在配股前3个年度和配股当年都具有较高的异常应计利润，而配股后运营业绩和股票长期收益趋于下降，异常应计利润与配股后的股票长期收益具有显著的负相关关系。投资者由于没有能够及时“看穿”配股公司的盈余管理行为而暂时高估了股票价值，从而被上市公司的盈余管理行为所误导。