Risk Perceptions of Financial Analysts and the Use of Market and Accounting Data

This paper reports the results of a laboratory experiment which attempts to test the relevance of accounting information and other market-related information in a risk-assessment task. Using the Brunswik lens model framework, estimates of ex ante risk on thirty stocks were regressed against nine company-specific cues and one industry variable. The results provide substantial evidence that publically available accounting and financial data convey information relevant for security risk evaluation.     

Earnings Surprise, Market Efficiency, and Expectations

The examination of both the analysts' consensus and simple forecast models over a single sample provides a better understanding of the link between unexpected earnings and security prices. Analysts' attention is found to reduce the value of the annual earnings announcement to the investor. This suggests that the earnings announcement of firms not followed by analysts contains more information relative to those firms followed by analysts. Further, the examination of the market response to the annual earnings announcement, with respect to either model, fails to detect the pricing anomaly observed in many previous studies.     

Stock Market Return Expectations: Some General Properties

This paper examines how and how well do leading economists forecast stock market returns. This question is fundamental in finance, since the Capital Asset Pricing foundation rests upon assumptions about the properties of investors' expectations for stock market returns. The results reveal that economists' expectations of market returns as exemplified in Livingston's data do not meet the necessary conditions of efficiency. It should be noted however, that in later period some improvement in the quality of economists' forecasts was observed.     

On Market Efficiency and Financial Accounting

It can be observed that heroin is used but this does not permit one to validly conclude that it is useful.     

Analyzing the Analysts: Career Concerns and Biased Earnings Forecasts

We examine security analysts' career concerns by relating their earnings forecasts to job separations. Relatively accurate forecasters are more likely to experience favorable career outcomes like moving up to a high-status brokerage house. Controlling for accuracy, analysts who are optimistic relative to the consensus are more likely to experience favorable job separations. For analysts who cover stocks underwritten by their houses, job separations depend less on accuracy and more on optimism. Job separations were less sensitive to accuracy and more sensitive to optimism during the recent stock market mania. Brokerage houses apparently reward optimistic analysts who promote stocks.     

Economic Value Added,Future Accounting Earnings,and Financial Analysts' Earnings Per Share Forecasts

Empirical research to date on the relative effectiveness of Economic Value Added (EVA) and earnings per share (EPS) as measures of firm performance for stock valuation has been mixed. In contrast to prior research, which primarily focuses on the correspondence of these measures with shareholder value and changes therein, we examine their relative effectiveness in predicting future earnings and their role in enhancing the accuracy of analysts' forecasts. Our results indicate that EVA contains information that is incremental to EPS in predicting future earnings. In addition, we find that despite this potential for EVA to add incremental value to analysts' forecasts of future earnings, analysts do not use the information in reported EVA appropriately, but appear rather to overweigh it.     

企业社会责任、市场评价与盈余信息含量

社会责任报告可以间接反映企业社会责任的管理水平和投入水平,反映企业的可持续发展能力和责任风险.本文研究发现:社会责任的履行会影响投资者对企业盈利持续性的判断,企业社会责任表现越好,市场评价越高,会计盈余的信息含量也越高.而社会责任战略的制定与实施、社会责任行为的履行以及社会责任信息的披露都将影响市场对企业发展以及盈余信息含量的评价.因此,企业也需要在社会责任战略实施以及信息披露上有所提高.     

场外市场会计盈余的信息含量

以万德数据库提供的新三板企业为样本,检验场外主体市场的会计盈余信息含量.混合样本检验显示,盈余信息披露对投资者超额收益有显著影响.分期检验中,2009年披露的盈余信息还不具备有效的信息含量;2010年披露的盈余信息具有信息含量,可能预示着场外市场的完善和成熟.此外,样本检验结果没有找到场外市场具有半强势有效的证据,但可以推断该市场处于弱势有效状态.     

US, UK and European Stock Market Integration

Abstract:   This paper examines long‐run convergence between US, UK and seven European stock markets. We report evidence to suggest that while real short‐run diversification gains may occur, in general they tend to be short‐lived. However we also find that US and UK markets are relatively less bound to a common trend, which would imply that increased stock market merger activity, and any transition to the European common currency by the UK, may lead to relatively large stock market adjustments as markets adapt to these institutional changes.     

Analysts Earnings Forecasts and the Roles of Earnings and Book Value in Equity Valuation

This study examines the effect of the degree of association between current earnings and expected future earnings on the relative importance of earnings and book value for explaining equity price. Consensus analysts forecasts of one-year-ahead earnings are used to proxy for expected future earnings and are compared to reported current earnings to measure the degree of the association. We find that the value-relevance of current earnings negatively correlates with the extent to which consensus analysts forecasts deviate from current earnings. We also find that the incremental explanatory power of book value for equity price positively correlates with this measure. These results remain robust after controlling for factors known to be affecting the value-relevance of earnings such as negative earnings and the earnings-to-book ratio. Our results also show that this analysts' forecast-based measure of `earnings persistence' dominates historical earnings variance in explaining cross-sectional variations in the value-relevance of earnings and book value.     

Investor Reaction to Celebrity Analysts: The Case of Earnings Forecast Revisions

We examine the effects of analysts' celebrity on investor reaction to earnings forecast revisions. We measure celebrity as the quantity of media coverage analysts receive in sources included in the Dow Jones Interactive database, and find that media coverage is positively related to investor reaction to forecast revisions. The effect of celebrity on the reaction to forecast revisions remains significant after controlling for forecast performance variables examined in prior studies (ex post forecast accuracy, ex ante accuracy, award status, and other variables shown to be related to forecast accuracy). While these results are consistent with the familiarity of the analyst's name affecting the market reaction, we cannot rule out that our measure of celebrity is correlated with error in the performance measures we examine and/or correlated with other unexamined dimensions of forecast performance. A content analysis of a random subsample of the media coverage of our sample analysts suggests that our findings likely are not due to the increased availability of forecast revisions. Finally, an investigation of the excess returns around the quarterly earnings announcement date suggests that market participants react too strongly to forecast revisions issued by analysts with high levels of media coverage. Taken together, these findings suggest that an analyst's level of media coverage can affect the initial market reaction to his forecast revisions.     

Earnings Volatility and Earnings Prediction: Analysis and UK Evidence

This paper confirms that US evidence of a negative relationship between earnings persistence and earnings volatility applies to UK firms over the period 1991–2010. Our analytical framework highlights the possibility that this result may reflect downward estimation bias in earnings persistence (and persistence of cash flow and accruals components of earnings) related to transitory earnings elements. Out‐of‐sample forecasts, based on models estimated for earnings volatility quartiles, suggest significant improvement in earnings forecasts for lower volatility firms. The results also suggest that the negative association between earnings persistence and volatility may be due to both estimation bias and variation in core earnings persistence.     

Initial Evidence on the Role of Accounting Earnings in the Bond Market

We document that: (1) the incidence of bond trade increases during the days surrounding earnings announcements, (2) there is a bond‐price reaction to the announcement of earnings, and (3) there is a positive association between annual bond returns and both annual changes in earnings and annual analysts' forecast errors. All of these effects are larger when earnings convey bad news or when the underlying bond is more risky. Taken together, our results suggest that the nonlinear payoff structure of bond securities affects the role of accounting earnings in the bond market.     

Accounting for the financialized UK and US national business model

In this paper we adopt a ‘business model’ conceptual framework grounded in accounting to describe the processes and mechanisms of national economic development and transformation. We locate national business models within a broad econo-sphere where they evolve and adapt to information arising out of stakeholder/institutional interactions. These interactions congeal into reported financial numbers that are presented as current income flows (income, expenditure), balance sheet accumulations and changes in net worth (assets and liabilities outstanding). We employ financial data from national accounts to specifically describe how the US and UK national business models have become financialized as ongoing capitalizations run ahead of earnings capacity. This process of interminable re-capitalization is conditioned by variable institutional and sub-institutional sector characteristics. However, in financialized national business models the system of accounting takes on added analytical significance because it ‘transmits rather than contains’ and ‘amplifies rather than dampens’ adverse financial disturbance as capitalizations are recalibrated up or down in secondary markets.     

Market Value Accounting in the Financial Services Sector

The past decade witnessed a deregulatory programme in Australia's financial sector. Market valuation of assets and liabilities has been required as a complement to historical costs in some cases, in others market values substitute for them. Interest in issues arising with market values has been heightened by the exposure draft on financial investments issued by the Australian Accounting Research Foundation in 1993. This article argues that the market valuation proposals offered in Exposure Draft 59 have not been argued effectively and explained sufficiently to secure their implementation.     

The Use of Foreign Accounting Data in UK Financial Institutions

Globalisation of securities markets has caused many members of the investment community to use foreign accounting data. This paper examines how this foreign data is used by some London-based participants in the market. Areas for examination are established after looking at the extensive published research on the use of domestic accounting data and the small amount of published research in an international context. Twenty-one market participants were interviewed, although four of these were treated as a pilot, so that most findings were based on 17 interviewees working for six institutions. If this sample is representative, our findings suggest that market participants are inexpert in accounting; sector experts see international accounting differences as a hindrance but country experts do not; participants use foreign accounting data for analysis but very few adjust it (although fund managers think that analysts do); there is some avoidance of countries or sectors for accounting reasons; and there is very little knowledge of international accounting differences.     

Non-GAAP Earnings Disclosures on the Face of the Income Statement by UK Firms: The Effect on Market Liquidity

This study benefits by a special feature of the UK information environment which allows UK firms to disclose non-GAAP earnings on the face of the income statement to examine two interrelated questions. First, we ask whether the decision to disclose non-GAAP earnings on the face of the income statement is related to the firm's financial performance and corporate governance characteristics, and second, we investigate the effect of this disclosure decision on market liquidity. Using a dataset of 1227 hand-collected firm-year observations during the period 2006–2013, we show that better governed firms and firms with weaker financial performance are more likely to disclose non-GAAP earnings. Our evidence also suggests that this disclosure is associated with increased levels of market liquidity and the results hold after controlling for self-selection bias. We conclude that firms' decision to disclose non-GAAP earnings on the face of the income statement is more consistent with the incentive to provide information than to mislead the market.