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.     

会计信息质量对股价崩盘风险的影响研究

本文以2017-2021年中国上市公司为研究样本,探究会计信息质量对公司股价崩盘风险的影响。研究发现会计信息质量越高,公司所面临的股价崩盘风险就越低。主要通过降低公司内部人与外部投资者之间的信息不对称程度,缓解了管理者对外隐瞒坏消息的倾向降低股价泡沫发生的可能性。从管理者代理的视角出发,发现管理费用越高,会计信息质量对股价崩盘风险的抑制作用越显著。     

Do Corporate Site Visits Impact Stock Prices?

We examine the stock price impact of corporate site visits using a unique data set of site visits to listed firms in China. Our main findings are as follows. First, the market reaction around corporate site visits is statistically and economically significant and is stronger for group visits, visits conducted by mutual fund managers, visits covering accounting and finance topics, visits to firms with poor information environments, and visits to manufacturing firms. Second, the stock returns around site visits are positively associated with firms’ future performance. Third, the changes in visiting funds’ holdings are more predictive of firms’ future performance than those of nonvisiting funds. Overall, this study contributes to the literature by providing evidence that site visits are important venues for investors to collect information about firms and make informed trades.     

投资者情绪与股票收益——来自移动互联网的实证研究

移动互联网的高速发展使得越来越多的投资者通过移动互联网获取信息并做出投资决策。文章利用网络爬虫技术收集来自移动互联网的用户讨论信息，研究来自移动互联网的用户情绪对股票收益的影响，实证结果显示：移动互联网用户情绪存在显著不对称特征，其更倾向于表现积极乐观的情绪，且其正负面情绪差异大于PCs端；同时，移动互联网用户情绪越乐观，下一期股票收益越高。进一步实证结果表明，处于较差信息环境（如散户持股较高，分析师跟踪人数较少）的公司，移动互联网用户情绪对其股票收益的影响更加显著；此外，对于流动性越差的公司，移动互联网用户情绪对其股票收益的影响也越显著。文章研究结论为移动互联网时代的投资者优化投资决策提供了新的视角，也是对行为金融学中传统媒体定价领域的重要补充。     

国际化经营、机构投资者与股价同步性

文章研究了中国上市公司的国际化经营对股价同步性的影响,以及机构投资者在二者关系中所起的作用。结果发现,相对于非国际化经营公司而言,国际化经营公司的股价同步性较高;而国际化经营程度越高,股价同步性越低,且二者的反向关系会随着机构投资者持股比例的增加而增强。结论表明,上市公司提供的信息量、投资者获取信息的成本、投资者的理性程度及结构等因素都会影响投资者识别和区分特质信息和噪音的能力,进而影响股价同步性。     

CEO Overconfidence and Stock Price Crash Risk

This study examines the association between chief executive officer (CEO) overconfidence and future stock price crash risk. Overconfident managers overestimate the returns to their investment projects and misperceive negative net present value (NPV) projects as value creating. They also tend to ignore or explain away privately observed negative feedback. As a result, negative NPV projects are kept for too long and their bad performance accumulates, which can lead to stock price crashes. Using a large sample of firms for the period 1993–2010, we find that firms with overconfident CEOs have higher stock price crash risk than firms with nonoverconfident CEOs. The impact of managerial overconfidence on crash risk is more pronounced when the CEO is more dominant in the top management team and when there are greater differences of opinion among investors. Finally, it appears that the effect of CEO overconfidence on crash risk is less pronounced for firms with more conservative accounting policies.     

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.     

分形市场假说与股票市场的有效性分析

主流的金融计量理论是以价格的随机游走和收益的正态分布假设为基础的。而分形市场研究认为价格是分形,价格遵循有偏随机游走,并用分形分布描述收益的分布规律。在分形研究的框架下,作为主流有效市场假说的替代理论,分形市场假说用不同投资期水平下的投资者对信息的不同评估来解释价格行为的分形机制,也启发我们从动态的和相对的角度去思考股票市场的有效性问题。     

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.     

创业板上市公司会计信息、剩余收益与股价相关性研究

上市公司重要财务指标的会计信息与股票价值相关性的研究一直是理论界长期关注的热点。该文以创业板上市公司为样本,结合Ohlson剩余收益理论,考察了2011-2013年该板块上市公司披露的会计信息对股票价格的影响。结果发现：创业板上市公司的会计信息能够在一定程度上很好地解释股票价格的波动,但创业板尚处于发展阶段,并未形成弱势有效市场;投资者在投资决策时会受到已掌握的会计信息的影响,剩余收益指标可以引导投资者更加重视企业的内在价值,进行投资决策时更多地考虑企业是否创造了价值,从而为价值投资者提供更好的依据。     

股票价格波动的信息渠道影响研究——基于媒体报道和分析师预测的视角

文章手工收集、整理了2006-2015年中国A股上市公司的媒体报道倾向数据,实证研究了媒体报道正向倾向与分析师乐观预测偏差对上市公司负收益偏态系数的影响。研究表明,虽然媒体报道正向倾向、分析师乐观预测均分别对上市公司股价负收益偏态系数产生显著的负向影响,但是两者的交互项对股价负收益偏态系数的影响则是显著为正,即当媒体报道正面倾向与分析师乐观预测两者共同作用时,将会触发"信息过度关注偏差"机制,从而降低了上市公司股票收益。文章研究还发现,媒体报道、分析师预测和"信息过度关注偏差"机制的作用强度,在市场化程度高地区要明显大于市场化程度低地区,可能的原因是市场化程度高地区的企业更加容易被媒体报道和分析师关注,进而产生更强的关注效应。     

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.     

公司信息披露质量对投资者交易行为的影响——基于对深圳上市公司的经验分析

本文在控制样本自选择偏误的基础上.实证分析了我国上市公司的信息披露质量差异对投资者交易行为的影响.研究发现,投资者在关于股票价格和风险的交易决策时对不同信息披露质量的公司具有行为差异,高披露质量的公司有较低的信息成本和市场风险;但是,公司信息披露质量高低对投资者的股票交易数量、交易速率的影响尚不显著,且不知情者"跟随"交易现象明显,市场投机氛围重,表明我国证券市场的有效程度尚待提高.本研究为规范和引导我国上市公司的信息披露行为及健全证券市场制度提供了经验证据.     

What Drives Stock Prices? Identifying the Determinants of Stock Price Movements

In this paper, we show that the data have difficulty distinguishing a stock price decomposition in which expectations of future real dividend growth is a primary determinant of stock price movements from one in which expectations of future excess returns are a primary determinant. The data cannot distinguish between these very different decompositions because movements in the price-dividend ratio are very persistent whereas neither real dividend growth nor excess returns are; most of the information about low-frequency movements in dividend growth and excess returns is contained in stock prices and not the series themselves. We further show that this inability to identify the source of stock price movements is not solely due to poor power and size properties of our statistical procedure, nor does it appear to be due to the presence of a rational bubble.     

基于不同分布假设GARCH族模型对上证指数波动性分析的比较研究

股票市场的波动性研究已经成为众多研究者和投资者广泛关注的焦点。以上证股票收益率为研究对象,在三种不同的分布假设下,利用GARCH族模型对上证指数波动性进行了比较研究,分析表明:上证股票收益率具有显著的条件异方差性,且基于GED分布的GARCH(1,1)模型是消除该条件异方差性的最佳模型;上证股票收益率具有正的风险溢价,且基于GED分布的GARCH(1,1)-M模型是反映风险溢价情况的最优模型;上证股票收益率存在着明显的不对称性(杠杆效应),利空消息比利好消息更容易引起大的波动,且基于标准正态分布的EGRCH(1,1)模型是揭示该不对称性的最佳模型。     

从股票市场角度看收入分配不公问题

长期以来,由于中国股票市场的不规范以及政策方面的原因,加上中小投资者在资金、信息、素质等方面的差距。股票市场的收入分配格局一直是那些拥有信息、资金等优势的大户获取了股市收益的绝大部分,而大部分中小散户亏损累累。这种市场收入分配格局严重影响了中小投资者的积极性,也影响了股票市场的健康发展。有必要对股票市场影响收入分配不公平的因素进行分析,然后就这些问题的解决提出一些相应的措施。     

Mitigating the Influence of Analysts Who Issue Aggressive Stock Price Targets: The Role of Joint Versus Separate Evaluation*

Investors frequently rely on individual analysts' stock price targets. Aggressive price targets often reflect analysts' attempts to strategically influence investors. Therefore, investors' welfare may be compromised if they take aggressive price targets at face value. In this study, we examine conditions under which investors are more likely to infer that analysts who issue aggressive price targets are acting strategically. Investors can evaluate multiple analysts' price targets with or without other related information (e.g., earnings estimates). Investors can also evaluate the information provided by multiple analysts jointly or separately one analyst at a time. Two experiments find that as predicted, when investors evaluate multiple analysts' price targets without earnings estimates, there is no difference in investors' perceptions about whether the aggressive analyst is acting strategically across joint versus separate evaluation. However, also as predicted, when investors evaluate multiple analysts' price targets along with their earnings estimates, investors perceive the aggressive analyst as acting more strategically under joint evaluation than under separate evaluation. Our findings suggest that jointly evaluating multiple analysts' price targets with other related information, such as earnings estimates, can reduce the likelihood that investors would be overly influenced by aggressive analysts.     

Market microstructure and price discovery on the Tokyo Stock Exchange

This paper compares the price discovery processes at the opening and closing transactions for the fifty largest stocks trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Open-to-open returns are found to have a greater volatility and a more negative autocorrelation pattern than close-to-close returns, similar to the pattern we found on the New York Stock Exchange. The results are consistent with pricing over-reaction at the opening and partial price-adjustment at the close. These patterns persist over time and prevail when estimated for returns conditional on the contemporaneous market effect. Our analysis of daytime and overnight returns suggest that pricing errors at the opening are corrected over the trading day. We present a new measure of volatility — the relative dispersion of stock returns around the market return — and find that it is greater at the opening, consistent with a more noisy price discovery process.     

Accounting Conservatism and Stock Price Crash Risk: Firm‐level Evidence

Using a large sample of U.S. firms during 1964–2007, we find that conditional conservatism is associated with a lower likelihood of a firm's future stock price crashes. This finding holds for multiple measures of conditional conservatism and crash risk and is robust to controlling for other known determinants of crash risk and firm‐fixed effects. Moreover, we find that the relation between conservatism and crash risk is more pronounced for firms with higher information asymmetry. Overall, our results are consistent with the notion that conditional conservatism limits managers’ incentive and ability to overstate performance and hide bad news from investors, which, in turn, reduces stock price crash risk.     

Stock returns and investment trust flows in the Japanese financial market: A system approach

To study dynamic and causal relations between stock returns and investment trust flows in Japan, we employ a system method which utilizes information from the stock, bond, and money markets. The empirical evidence from SURECM, and Granger (1969) and Sims (1972) causality tests in the system method indicates that investment trust flows are weakly exogenous and stock returns cause net fund flows, implying that investors move their money to the securities that yield higher returns to rebalance their investment portfolios in the short-run. Thus, our findings do not support the popular notion of mutual fund flows as a driving force behind rallies in Japanese financial markets.