Impact of mood and gender on individual investors’ reactions to retractions and corrections of earnings forecasts

Whilst individual investors’ reactions to earnings forecasts have been widely documented, the impact that retractions and/or corrections have on investors’ decisions has received little attention. Further, the role that either/both mood and gender of investors play has not been investigated within this context. This is especially important as failure by individual investors to adjust correctly to retractions/corrections of earnings may have adverse investment outcomes. Our study thus investigates whether mood and gender differences influence the way in which individual investors react to retractions and corrections of management earnings forecasts. In this paper, we show that individual investors do not adjust correctly to retractions and corrections of previously disclosed information. We also find that both mood and gender play a significant role in individual investors’ reactions to such announcements. Awareness of the differences in investors’ reactions to retractions and corrections of earnings according to their mood and/or gender can provide further insights on whether their investment decisions are rational and are hence consistent with traditional models of assumed rational investment behaviour.     

证券分析师的盈余预测和股票评级是否具有独立性?

本文通过构建理论模型和实证检验全面分析了证券分析师所面临的利益关系对其所发布的信息质量的影响,结果表明:证券分析师为了维护与基金等机构投资者以及公司内部投资银行部门的关系,倾向于发布偏乐观的盈余预测和股票评级;声誉较高的分析师也同样不能在各种利益关系的漩涡中保持独立.这些结果揭示了我国证券分析师独立性缺失的利益根源,并为监管层规范和发展证券分析师行业提供了重要的理论依据.     

管理层业绩预告信息披露时机选择研究——基于投资者有限关注的视角

基于投资者有限关注的视角,以中国上市公司2005-2012年业绩预告信息为样本,研究发现:上市公司业绩预告信息披露存在时机选择行为,相比业绩预告信息少日和其他周历,管理层更倾向于在信息多日和周五、周六发布坏消息业绩预告。这有助于分散投资者注意力,从而减少坏消息导致的股价波动。     

微博、信息披露与分析师盈余预测

信息技术和社交网络的发展改变了信息的数量、类型及其传播方式。作为金融市场上最专业的信息使用者,分析师无疑会受到这一变化的影响。文章研究了上市公司开通微博对分析师盈余预测的影响,结果发现：（1）开通微博后,分析师盈余预测的修正频率增加,说明分析师会使用微博信息及时更新盈余预测。（2）开通微博后,分析师的平均盈余预测偏差和盈余预测分歧度都显著下降,说明微博信息是分析师进行预测的重要信息源,有助于其更好地了解和分析公司的经营活动。（3）开通微博后,公司股价对分析师盈余预测修正的反应更大。一个合理的解释是,投资者对微博发布的信息反应不足,而分析师能够帮助理解这些信息。文章的研究结论对于监管部门制定基于微博的社交网络信息披露标准,以及分析师如何在资本市场信息定价效率方面最大程度地发挥作用具有参考意义。     

Accruals quality,managers’ incentives and stock market reaction: evidence from Europe

We investigate if accruals quality is a valuable indicator of earnings quality for stock market investors. Our particular focus is on the incremental informative value of taking into account managers’ incentives for using accruals. We propose a market-based approach for assessing the usefulness of this indicator to improve investors’ decisions. Specifically, we examine the association between accruals quality and information asymmetry among stock market participants. Our empirical study uses data on European firms and our results are consistent with a positive association between poor earnings quality and high information asymmetry. However, given some previous studies suggesting that accruals-based measures may be noisy indicators of earnings quality, we develop a method to increase the informational content of the accruals quality measure. Based on our results, we find that combining accruals quality with the dispersion in analysts’ forecasts provides a better indicator of earnings quality rather than only accruals quality.     

Exploring Ambiguity and Familiarity Effects in The “Earnings Game” Between Managers and Investors

Prior evidence suggests that managers and investors play an earnings game in which managers bias their earnings forecasts downward as the earnings announcement date approaches. Knowing managers’ incentives to provide biased guidance, investors still revise their expectations downward helping to create “positive earnings surprises.” Using a 2 (ambiguity) × 2 (familiarity) between subject randomized experimental design where MBA students playing the roles of manager and investor answer a series of questions related to earnings guidance, we investigate whether earnings environment ambiguity and manager-investor familiarity influence behavior during the “earnings game.” In general, results from this study suggest that ambiguity contributes to managers’ propensity to mislead and investors’ propensity to follow, and a false sense of familiarity may amplify investors’ reliance on managers’ guidance.     

会计信息可比性与上市公司业绩预告外溢效应

现有信息披露对资本市场影响的实证研究主要集中研究公司信息披露与自身股价之间的关系。本文对我国上市公司2007—2017年发布的业绩预告的信息外溢效应进行了检验,发现上市公司业绩预告对行业内其他公司的市场反应具有显著解释力,表明我国资本市场业绩预告存在信息外溢现象。并且,公司间会计信息可比性越高,外溢效应越显著,表明会计信息可比性促进了公司间的信息传递,对投资者股票交易具有决策参考意义。进一步检验发现,可比性对信息外溢效应的促进作用在市场竞争更激烈的公司中更为显著。此外,预告公司和非预告公司的信息环境对信息传递的影响有所差异。本文研究结论为我国资本市场外部性现象提供经验证据,对于信息披露质量要求以及披露监管政策研究具有启示意义。     

Blowing Bubbles

The forecasts of individual investors, surveyed by Gallup/PaineWebber, imply that they believed that the market was in a bubble in the late 1990s and expected the bubble to continue to inflate; many investors thought that the stock market was overvalued in the late 1990s but many also thought that it was a good time to invest. The forecasts of institutional investors, surveyed by Business Week, imply that they too believed that the market was in a bubble in the late 1990s, but they expected the bubble to burst. Institutional investors were bearish in the late 1990s, but turned bullish after the stock market decline of 2000, while individual investors turned bearish.     

When Are Investors Rational?

Taking our cue from certain recent advances in experimental psychology, the authors propose a plausible theory of conflict between rationality and inherent behavioral biases of investors. In this theory no investor is fully rational or fully behavioral at all times. An investor faces a continuum between behavioral and rational positions. A movement toward rationality is a choice; it is costly to be fully rational which requires serious mental calculations. On the other hand, there could be some benefits to rationality in special circumstances that compensate for the costs. Using a unique and extensive investor-level database, the authors show that the degree of nonrationality decreases as rational behavior becomes more attractive. In the empirical setting, the proxy for rational behavior is investor's use of private predisclosure information during earnings announcement periods, while the disposition effect they display serves as an estimate of their behavioral bias. The paper contributes to the existing literature in several dimensions.     

Cash Flow Is King? Cognitive Errors by Investors

When investors fixate on current earnings, they commit a cognitive error and fail to fully value the information contained in accruals and cash flows. Extending the accrual anomaly documented by Sloan [1996], we identify significant excess returns from a cash flow-based trading strategy. The market consistently underestimates the transitory nature of accruals and the long-term persistence of cash flows. We find that the accrual anomaly derives from the poor performance of high accrual firms, which are more likely to manage earnings. Combining the accrual and cash flow information also reveals that investors misvalue the quality of earnings. Contrary to Fama [1998], these anomalies are robust to the three-factor model with equally or value-weighted portfolio returns.     

Effects of Risk-Based Capital Requirements and Asymmetric Information on Banks' Portfolio Decisions

This paper examines if asymmetric information about earnings prospects caused low-capital banks to reduce assets rather than raise capital between 1989 and 1992, the transition period from the leverage ratio to the risk-based capital requirement. The measure of asymmetric information here is the residual of an earnings prediction model based on publicly available information. If managers are significantly better informed than outside investors, a large residual indicates that inside information is more favorable and that the bank's stock is undervalued. The empirical results show an insignificant effect of asymmetric information on banks' portfolio decisions.     

研究员收益预测差异与公司债券信用利差

机构研究员对上市公司的未来收益进行预测,预测差异常常造成债券价格出现偏差。以国内上市公司发行的债券为例,以研究员对收益预测的差异和债券信用利差进行了检验。结果发现,在卖空限制下,预测差异越大,债券信用利差越低。这种差异更多地代表了投资者的意见分歧,而非未来的风险水平。并且公司债券比企业债券的信用利差对投资者意见分歧更敏感。此外,还证实了银行间债券市场的流动性确实优于交易所债券市场;平均而言,公司债券的信用利差较企业债券的信用利差更低。     

Intermarket sweep order trade size clustering around corporate announcements

Investors have different trade size preferences depending on their information advantage. Using intermarket sweep orders (ISOs), we find that investors appear to prefer using small, round lot trades around corporate events with higher announcement frequency and more predictable timing, such as earnings announcements. Around these corporate events, information is revealed, and analyst estimates are confirmed or rejected. Conversely, share repurchase announcements happen less frequently and the timing of these announcements are unpredictable. Relative to earnings announcements, share repurchase announcements create more uncertainty than they resolve. We find that when investors have less information, they tend to use costlier, larger trade size multiples. We further support the extant finding that trade sizes are smaller with the advent of high-frequency trading.     

Market segmentation and information values of earnings announcements: Some empirical evidence from an event study on the Chinese stock market

This paper investigates the trading activities of two distinct classes of shareholders, namely, the Chinese domestic investors and the foreign investors in the segmented Chinese A- and B-share markets, respectively. We conduct an event study on the annual earnings announcements based on two different accounting standards: International accounting standards (IAS) and PRC generally accepted accounting principles (PRC GAAP). The earnings announcements based on IAS and PRC GAAP are value relevant. The investors in the B-share market react to both the IAS and PRC GAAP earnings announcements, while the investors in the A-share market pay more attention to the PRC GAAP earnings reports. In the B-share market, positive abnormal returns are associated with positive earnings surprise and negative abnormal returns go with negative earnings surprise. We find preevent abnormal trading volumes without significant price changes for the A shares, which may be due to existing information in the A-share market prior to earnings announcements. The postevent abnormal trading volumes last for a longer period in the A-share market than in the B-share market.     

Earnings response coefficient in the MENA region

This article documents the earnings response coefficient (ERC) for nonfinancial firms listed in the Middle East and North Africa region during the period between 2003 and 2013. Our results show significantly positive ERC for our sample firms. The results are robust across different countries and different industries. Our results also show that ERC increases with increasing the measurement interval. It indicates that more information is incorporated in prices as the measurement interval increase. Consequently, we argue that significance of reported earnings is higher for long-term investors in the MENA region.     

从股票错误定价看投资-现金流敏感性

在传统的投资-现金流敏感性研究基础上,本文运用中国上市公司2003-2008年面板数据,考察了盈余管理造成的股票错误定价对公司投资-现金流敏感性的影响.本文的实证结果表明:当股价处于上升通道中时(即投资者看好投资前景时),公司的投资-现金流敏感性较高,并且融资约束对公司的投资-现金流敏感性影响显著,但盈余操纵导致错误定价对公司投资-现金流敏感性影响不大;股指处于下降通道时,通过盈余操纵导致股价高估的公司,往往无法获得外部股权融资,只体现了更高的稳定股价和投资的意愿,因此,此类公司的投资-现金流敏感性较高.本文运用信息不对称理论,结合投资者情绪和管理者行为分析,对研究结果进行了解释并指出了后续研究的方向.     

Analyst earnings forecast revisions and the persistence of antidumping relief

Panel corrected standard errors with instrumental variables and effects are invoked to assess the significance of earnings forecast revisions around critical dates in non-steel AD petitions filed in 1985–1987. These petitions were filed between two important US trade law revisions (1984 and 1988), and the period encompasses significant stock market advances and declines. Event studies have been invoked to assess the value of AD petitions. However, they do not estimate the temporal distribution of any abnormal returns. Because analysts make quarterly earnings forecast revisions over several horizons, we can assess the short and long run value of petitions. We find that AD petitions tend to depress earnings forecasts in the year of the petition. However, second year earnings forecasts tend to be revised upwards. There is no effect on five year (long term) earnings growth forecasts. Hence any benefits of protection do not persist. There is evidence that analysts anticipate the filing by revising forecasts in the three months in advance of the filing. We also find that AD petitions do not affect the accuracy of forecasts.     

财务分析师盈余预测精确度决定因素的实证分析

文章以2004~2005年的上市公司数据为样本,分析了我国财务分析师在预测上市公司未来盈余时影响其预测精确度的主要因素。研究发现,预测机构数量的增加、盈余可预测性以及信息披露质量的提高,将伴随着高的盈余预测精确度,而盈余波动程度越大、公司规模越大,预测的精确度则越低。同时,可预测性、盈余管理、盈余波动以及公司扩张速度对分析师的悲观预测有显著的影响,而可预测性、盈余管理以及公司规模则显著影响分析师对盈余的乐观估计。     

Inefficiency in Earnings Forecasts: Experimental Evidence of Reactions to Positive vs. Negative Information

Prior archival studies of analysts' forecasts have found evidence for systematic underreaction, systematic overreaction, and systematic optimism bias. Easterwood and Nutt (1999) attempt to reconcile the conflicting evidence by testing the robustness of Abarbanell and Bernard's (1992) underreaction results to the nature of the information. Consistent with systematic optimism, forecasts are found to underreact to negative earnings information but overreact to positive information. However, Easterwood and Nutt are unable to distinguish between misreaction caused by incentives unique to analysts with misreaction caused by human decision bias that may be typical of investors. We address this issue by analyzing forecast reactions to positive versus negative information in the controlled experimental setting of Gillette, Stevens, Watts, and Williams (1999). The forecast data reveal systematic underreaction to both positive and negative information, and the underreaction is generally greater for positive information than negative information. This suggests that prior empirical evidence of forecast overreaction to positive information is unlikely to be attributable to human decision bias.     

Value Relevance of Earnings in an Emerging Capital Market: the Case of A-shares in China

This study investigates the value relevance of earnings in the emerging capital market of China by examining the information content of accounting earnings measured under the People's Republic of China Accounting Standards (PRC-GAAP). Based on the A-shares of listed Chinese firms during 1994–97, a significant association is observed between annual market-adjusted stock return and the change of earnings. Also documented is a significant price reaction to the annual earnings announcement in a three-day window centered around the announcement date. Overall, the empirical results suggest that earnings reported in China are value-relevant to A-share investors.