Discussion of “The impact of product market competition on the quantity and quality of voluntary disclosures”

Li (2010, this issue) examines how product market competition affects voluntary disclosure by firms. Using several competition proxies, she finds that both the competitive threat from potential entrants into an industry and from existing rivals affect the quantity and accuracy of voluntary profit and investment forecasts by firms in that industry. However, the study’s findings are inconclusive mainly because each competition proxy used can reflect both types of competitive threat. The focus of my discussion is to provide some comments and suggestions for future researchers to consider in examining how the nature of product market competition affects voluntary firm disclosure.     

Institutional investor horizon and stock price synchronicity: Do product market competition and analyst coverage matter?

This paper provides new insights into the relation between institutional investment horizon and stock price synchronicity and investigates whether this relationship depends on the intensity of product market competition and analyst coverage. Based on a sample of French listed companies, we find that long-term (short-term) institutional investors are associated with lower (higher) stock price synchronicity. The results also show that the negative effect of long-term institutional investors is more accentuated for firms in less competitive markets and with high analyst coverage. An additional analysis shows that the synchronicity reduction effect does not vary during the financial crisis. Overall, these findings suggest that unlike their short-term counterparts, long term investors reduce asymmetric information and help disseminate firm-specific information into stock prices.     

Do product market threats affect analyst forecast precision?

We examine how product market threats influence the precision of analyst forecasts. Greater competitive threats may make forecasting more difficult by increasing the uncertainty regarding future cash flows and by influencing the quality of financial disclosure. Using a firm-specific measure of product market threats (i.e., fluidity), we find that analysts are more likely to be less precise forecasting earnings for highly fluid firms and that the lack of precision is not fully explained by performance volatility. Our findings further suggest that firms with fluid products have lower accruals quality and that they are more likely to withheld information regarding contract terms and sales from major customers. Cross-sectional analysis further suggests that the effect of fluidity on analyst forecasts is more pronounced when firms have flexibility in disclosure choices. Using significant changes in tariff rates as a quasi-natural experiment, we find that analyst forecast precision is significantly lower following tariff reductions.     

A new approach to predicting analyst forecast errors: Do investors overweight analyst forecasts?

I provide evidence that investors overweight analyst forecasts by demonstrating that prices do not fully reflect predictable components of analyst errors, which conflicts with conclusions in prior research. I highlight estimation bias in traditional approaches and develop a new approach that reduces this bias. I estimate characteristic forecasts that map current firm characteristics into forecasts of future earnings. Contrasting characteristic and analyst forecasts predicts analyst forecast errors and revisions. I find abnormal returns to strategies that sort firms by predicted forecast errors, consistent with investors overweighting analyst forecasts and predictable biases in analyst forecasts influencing the information content of prices.     

Learn from peers? The impact of peer firms' analyst earnings forecasts on a focal firm's corporate investment efficiency

We explore whether a firm can learn from information on peers produced by analysts. Based on a sample of Chinese firms, we document that analyst earnings forecast accuracy (dispersion or optimism) of peer firms is positively (negatively) associated with the focal firm's investment efficiency. The effect is more salient when the focal firm operates in a competitive industry, when analysts are predicting positive earnings, when peers produce low-quality annual reports, or when the focal firm has high information asymmetry. Overall, our findings provide new insights on learning from peer information produced by a third party and show that analyst earnings forecasts have spillover effects in the product market.     

Do corporations manage earnings to meet/exceed analyst forecasts? Evidence from pension plan assumption changes

A significantly larger number of firms increase the expected rate of return on pension plan assets (ERR) to make their reported earnings meet/exceed analyst forecasts than would be expected by chance. In the short run, the stock market reacts positively to these firms’ earnings announcements, suggesting that investors fail to recognize that earnings benchmarks are achieved through ERR manipulation. In the long run, however, firms that employ this earnings management strategy significantly underperform control firms in both stock returns and operating performance.     

Investment and access to external finance in Europe: Does analyst coverage matter?

We aim to determine whether analyst coverage improves European firms’ access to capital markets and investment. Based on a data set that includes firms from several European countries between 2000 and 2015, we implement a treatment effect framework and an instrumental variables (IV) approach, in which the intensity of industry-level waves in coverage is used as an instrument for firm-level coverage. We show that analyst coverage is favorable to firms’ debt and share issuance and their investment expenses. Our paper emphasizes the key role of financial analysts in improving European firms’ financial conditions.     

Do section 404 disclosures affect investors' perceptions of information systems reliability and stock price predictions?

This paper examines the impact of Sarbanes–Oxley Act (2002) Section 404 disclosures regarding internal controls over financial reporting on investors' information systems (IS) reliability assessments and stock price predictions. Prior research shows that Section 404 disclosures signal differences in the quality of company financial information. However, research on how Section 404 disclosures impact financial markets shows mixed results. In order for Section 404 information to affect stock prices, users must access that information, assess its implications, and incorporate those implications into their decision processes. We investigate the stages of this process through an experiment using a 10-K filing adapted from an actual company, utilizing process-tracing software to record information access. Two versions of the case were used to manipulate the type of Section 404 opinion, noting effective or ineffective control systems. Results show that professional investors are more likely to access Section 404 information than nonprofessionals. Also, our findings imply that professional investors have a lower baseline expectation of reliability that increases on learning of effective controls, while nonprofessionals have a higher baseline expectation of reliability that declines on learning of ineffective controls. While IS reliability is positively associated with nonprofessionals' stock price predictions, there is no such association for professionals. These findings help explain the mixed results in past archival studies. Prior results on market response to Section 404 information may be due in part to failure to access Section 404 reports, and to the low weighting placed on IS reliability by financial professionals.     

The impact of accruals and lines of business on analysts’ earnings forecast superiority

In this paper, we examine the linkage between analyst advantage (AA) (compared to the seasonal random walk model) in the prediction of quarterly earnings-per-share (EPS) and a broad set of economic determinants. Specifically, we employ a pooled cross-sectional time-series regression model where AA is linked to a set of firm-specific economic determinants that have been employed in extant work (e.g., Brown et al. in J Account Res 22:49?C67, 1987; Kross et al. in Account Rev 65:461?C476, 1990). We refine this set of independent variables by including a new variable (RATIODEV) based upon Sloan (Account Rev 71(3):289?C315, 1996) who documents that differential levels of accruals impact future earnings performance. This variable is particularly salient in explaining AA since analysts may be in a position to identify the permanent component of accruals via fundamental financial analysis. Additionally, we refine the measurement of lines of business??consistent with the reporting requirements of SFAS No. 131 relative to extant work that operationalized proxies for this variable based upon SFAS No. 14. Parameters for these aforementioned variables are significantly positively related to AA, consistent with theory.     

Do asset impairments and the associated disclosures resolve uncertainty about future returns and reduce information asymmetry?

The objective of this study is to provide insights into how Australian listed firms are implementing AASB 136 Impairments of Assets. Our first concern is whether uncertainty about future returns and information asymmetry motivates the recognition of asset impairments. We find no evidence that the recognition of asset impairments is associated with higher uncertainty about future returns. Furthermore, we find no evidence that the recognition of asset impairments is associated with higher information asymmetry. Our second concern is whether asset impairments and the associated disclosures provide information that reduces uncertainty about future returns and information asymmetry. While we find some evidence that asset impairments are associated with decreases in information asymmetry before the financial crisis, during the financial crisis, asset impairments are associated with increases in both measurement uncertainty and information asymmetry.     

Are survey forecasts of individual and institutional investor sentiments rational?

We examine the effects of rational risk factors on investor sentiments. We find that institutional investor sentiments are more rational than individual investor sentiments. There are significant positive effects of, market return and dividend yield and negative effect of inflation on both types of sentiments. These risk factors have stronger effects on institutional than individual investor sentiments. Also, there are significant effects of term spread and HML on the institutional investor sentiments. The evidence suggests that linkages between sentiments and stock return stems from a combination of rational outlook and noise i.e. expectations that are not fully justified by information.     

Do financial analysts' long-term growth forecasts matter? Evidence from stock recommendations and career outcomes

Prior literature portrays long-term growth (LTG) forecasts as nonsensical from a valuation perspective. Instead, we hypothesize that LTG forecasts signal high effort and ability to analyze firms' long-term prospects. We document stronger market response to stock recommendation revisions of analysts who publish accompanying LTG forecasts. We also hypothesize and find that these analysts are less likely to leave the profession or move to smaller brokerage houses. Consistent with Reg. FD's intention to promote fundamental analysis of long-term earnings prospects, post-Reg. FD observations drive our results. Overall, we identify previously undocumented benefits accruing to analysts who publish LTG forecasts.     

Do market,resource and knowledge distance impact inbound cross-border acquisition?

With the increasing phenomena of cross-border acquisition (CBA) activities in emerging economies (EE), evidence about “distance” factors that make these economies attractive to home country firms is sparse. Given this background, we employ major locational advantage distance measures such as market, resource, and knowledge distances and examine their impact on the value and number of inbound CBAs in India. We source inbound CBA deal data from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database for the 1990–2020 period during which 47 home countries were making acquisitions of target firms in India. We develop relevant hypotheses based on a comprehensive literature review. We run tobit and negative binomial regression models on a final sample of 921 country-pair-year observations to test the hypotheses. The results show that increasing market and knowledge distances enhanced the value and number of India's inbound CBAs, fueled by the country's growth potential and knowledge base. However, we find no evidence of a role played by resource distance.     

The time‐varying performance of UK analyst recommendation revisions: Do market conditions matter?

This study examines the time‐varying performance of investment strategies following analyst recommendation revisions in the UK stock market, with specific emphasis on the impact of changing market conditions. We find a negative relationship between the recommendation performance and market conditions as measured in terms of past market return and market volatility. In particular, the upgrade (downgrade) portfolio generates significantly positive (negative) net abnormal returns in bad market conditions (e.g., the dot‐com bubble burst in 2000 and the credit crisis in 2007), but not in other periods of time. Moreover, our non‐temporal threshold regression analysis shows that the reported negative relationship disappears when market conditions become better, i.e., when the past market return (market volatility) is higher (lower) than a certain level, indicating the importance of taking non‐linearity into account in the long sample period as examined in this study. Our time‐series bootstrap simulations further confirm that the superior recommendation performance in bad market conditions is not due to random chance; analysts have certain skills in making valuable up/downward revisions in bad markets.     

Do disclosures of selective access improve market information acquisition fairness? Evidence from company visits in China

Following an exogenous regulation change in China, we examine the impact of company visit disclosures on the fairness of market information acquisition. Before July 2012, company visits to Chinese listed firms were vaguely disclosed in annual reports long after they were conducted. After that, they were disclosed in detail within two trading days of their completion. Market reactions around visits are much stronger and more predictive of firms' future earnings if visits occurred after July 2012 and, thus, were disclosed in a timelier and more detailed manner. The timely disclosure of visit details also improves the forecast accuracy of non-visiting analysts, reduces forecast dispersion among analysts, and weakens the relative information advantages of visiting analysts. Because of this, visits are more concentrated on firms with poorer information environments, larger sizes, and manufacturing firms after July 2012, i.e., firms offering visitors larger potential benefits. In summary, the timely disclosure of visit details improves the fairness of information acquisition and decreases information asymmetry while causing information chilling effects for firms that provide fewer potential benefits to visitors.     

A leap of faith that echoes well? The value impact of Chinese firms starting up business overseas

We investigate the impact of greenfield outward foreign direct investment (GODI) by Chinese firms on their subsequent Tobin's Q. Our findings indicate that Chinese listed companies from 2003 to 2019 generally experience a significantly positive boost in perceived firm value (or growth prospects) when engaging in overseas business start-ups (i.e., with no foreign partners) when compared to their inactive peers. The positive GODI effect is more prominent among privately owned enterprises vs. state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Our mechanism tests indicate that lowered effective tax rates and reduced illiquidity due to conducting greenfield ODI serve as the value-enhancing channels. Possibly driven by political objectives, SOEs tend to prioritize developing and Belt-Road countries as the destination for their greenfield overseas endeavors.     

Pricing of off‐balance sheet debt: how do bond market participants use the footnote disclosures on operating leases and postretirement benefit plans?

In this study, we examine whether the public debt market prices information on off‐balance sheet debt arising from operating leases and postretirement plans. We find that bond‐rating agencies price off‐balance sheet debt arising from operating leases and the coefficient on off‐balance sheet debt measure of operating leases is similar to that of capital leases on the balance sheet. Regarding postretirement benefit plans, we find that bond‐rating agencies do price postretirement benefit obligations that are reported in balance sheet but do not price such obligations disclosed in footnotes. We find similar results when we examine corporate bond yields on new debt issues.     

Brokerage trading volume and analysts’ earnings forecasts: a conflict of interest?

Review of Accounting Studies - Using unique new data, we examine whether brokerage trading volume creates a conflict of interest for analysts. We find that earnings forecast optimism is associated...     

Why do firms go dark? Causes and economic consequences of voluntary SEC deregistrations

We examine a comprehensive sample of going-dark deregistrations where companies cease SEC reporting, but continue to trade publicly. We document a spike in going dark that is largely attributable to the Sarbanes–Oxley Act. Firms experience large negative abnormal returns when going dark. We find that many firms go dark due to poor future prospects, distress and increased compliance costs after SOX. But we also find evidence suggesting that controlling insiders take their firms dark to protect private control benefits and decrease outside scrutiny, particularly when governance and investor protection are weak. Finally, we show that going dark and going private are distinct economic events.