The Accrual Anomaly: Accrual Originations,Accrual Reversals,and Resolution of Uncertainty*

We combine a fundamental property of accruals and a behavioral phenomenon to provide an explanation for the accrual anomaly. The fundamental property is accruals that originate must subsequently reverse. The behavioral phenomenon is individuals tend to underestimate the variance of noisy signals in various domains of decision making. We argue that originating accruals represents a noisier signal than reversing accruals because the uncertainty of whether originating accruals will eventually convert into cash is high, while there is no uncertainty regarding reversing accruals. If investors underestimate the variance of originating accruals but understand reversing accruals, then originating accruals will be mispriced while reversing accruals will not. To test this prediction, we first develop and empirically validate a novel method for ex ante detecting accrual originations and their reversals. Then we document that investors face increased uncertainty when accruals originate and decreased uncertainty when accruals reverse, and we provide evidence that only originating accruals are mispriced. We further demonstrate that our findings can be useful for improving the accrual-based trading strategy by ex ante detecting and removing accrual reversals from extreme accrual portfolios. Overall, we provide a behavioral explanation for the accrual anomaly that is consistent with the mispricing of originating accruals only.     

Trading Behavior Prior to Public Release of Analyst Reports: Evidence from Korea

This paper investigates information leakage from analyst reports prior to their public release. Previous studies document abnormal trading by institutions or short selling before announcement of recommendation changes. Such prerelease abnormal trading is interpreted as evidence of information leakage from analyst reports. However, if sophisticated investors obtain information similar to what analysts have from other sources, abnormal prerelease trading patterns would be observed even if there were no information leakage from analyst reports. This paper, using a unique data set from Korea, aims to determine whether a direct causal link between recommendation changes and prerelease trading exists, by comparing trading behavior of client investors with non‐client investors. We find that abnormal prerelease trading by client investors, especially client institutions, is earlier in timing and greater in magnitude than that of other investor groups, supporting the information leakage hypothesis. We further find that net buying by client institutions and client large individuals is positively associated with firm, analyst, and earnings forecast change variables that influence formulation of recommendation changes and their impacts.     

A Better Measure of Institutional Informed Trading

Although many studies show that the presence of institutional investors facilitates the incorporation of accounting information into financial markets, the evidence of informed trading by institutions is rather limited in the extant literature. We address these inconsistent findings by proposing PC_NII, percentage changes in the number of a stock's institutional investors, as a novel informed trading measure. PC_NII is better able to detect informed trading than are changes in institutional ownership (ΔIO)—the measure commonly used in previous studies—because (i) entries and exits are usually triggered by substantive private information and (ii) only a small fraction of institutions have superior information. As conjectured, PC_NII subsumes the information content of ΔIO and other institutional trading and herding measures in the forecast of stock returns, and its strong predictive power for stock returns reflects mainly its close correlation with future earnings surprises. We also show that PC_NII helps address empirical issues that require a reliable measure of institutional informed trading.     

When Does Pre‐IPO Financial Reporting Trigger Post‐IPO Legal Consequences?

Prior research suggests that the fear of litigation precludes most managers from manipulating earnings in the initial public offering (IPO) setting. Yet, managers' restraint is perhaps unwarranted: research has not yet linked instances of aggressive pre‐IPO reporting to increased litigation risk. This paper investigates when aggressive IPO reporting triggers legal consequences. Examining 2,037 IPOs, we find that even when ex post evidence indicates the presence of earnings inflation, litigation is more likely to occur when investors have relied on the suspect earnings during the pricing process. Why might investors rely on some firms' abnormal accruals when valuing the IPO and yet discount the abnormal accruals of other firms? Our analyses suggest that IPO investors incorporate abnormal accrual information into IPO prices in situations where accruals are more likely to reflect information and where other sources of information to help investors make pricing decisions are lacking or are less reliable. In these situations, we find that abnormal accruals do positively correlate with future performance, validating investors' use of this information when pricing these offerings. Yet, when ex post performance reveals that these pre‐IPO abnormal accruals were in fact inflated, we find that litigation emerges to allow harmed shareholders to recover losses incurred dating back to the pricing process—importantly, investors are only harmed if they used those abnormal accruals in pricing the IPO. Collectively, our evidence indicates that litigation in response to earnings inflation does indeed surface in the IPO setting—but only when investors need it to settle the score.     

Asymmetric Learning from Prices and Post‐Earnings‐Announcement Drift

Motivated by research in psychology and experimental economics, we assume that investors update their beliefs about an asset's value upon observing the price, but only when the price clearly reveals that others obtained private information that differs from their own private information. Specifically, we assume that investors learn from the price of an asset in an asymmetric manner—they learn from the price if they observe good (bad) private information and the price is worse (better) than what is justified based on public information alone. We show that asymmetric learning from an asset's price leads to post‐earnings‐announcement drift (PEAD), and that it generates arbitrage opportunities that are less attractive than alternative explanations of PEAD. In addition, our model predicts that PEAD will be concentrated in earnings surprises that are not dominated by accruals, and it also predicts that earnings response coefficients will decline in the magnitude of the earnings surprises.     

Institutional Investors' Trading in Speculation: Evidence from China

The trading behaviour of institutional investors has attracted much attention. However, many issues related to their trading behaviour cannot be addressed without high‐frequency changes in institutional ownership. Based on a measure of the trading behaviour of institutional investors by using an institutional account dataset from China, we find that (i) active institutions trade speculatively by taking advantage of individual investors; (ii) individuals buying high and selling low offer liquidity only on average; (iii) foreign investors do not show significant patterns in speculation; and (iv) trading of active institutions significantly affects price. This study casts doubt on the conventional wisdom that institutional or sophisticated investors improve market efficiency by correcting mispricing, and provides direct evidence for institutional investors' speculation behaviour and their destabilising effect on the stock market. Results suggest that regulators in emerging markets should monitor institutions' speculation to bring fairness and justice to the stock market.     

Unregulated Stock Markets in Second Life

SLCapex is a stock exchange owned and operated by “residents” of the online virtual world Second Life. Despite its almost complete lack of regulation and legal protections against fraud or insider trading, issuers were able to raise approximately US$145,000 from investors, which grew to US$900,000 in market value before plummeting, resulting in overall investor returns of ?71%. Investors in large issuances lost more than investors in small issuances, and small investors experienced more severe losses relative to large investors when more money was at stake, indicating that the market did a poor job of protecting investors from issuers and of providing a level playing field for investors. Theories from financial economics can explain the markets' poor performance in the absence of regulatory and legal institutions, but they cannot easily explain why issuers were able to raise capital in such a setting.     

The Mispricing of Cash Flows and Accruals at Different Life‐Cycle Stages

This paper employs the firm life‐cycle concept to extend our understanding of the mispricing of accrual and cash flow information by the stock market. We find that accruals and free cash flows are strongly (negatively) correlated in the maturity and decline stages of a firm's life cycle but not in the growth stage, suggesting that they capture unique information in the growth stage of the firm's life cycle but more correlated information in the later stages. Consistent with this finding, we show that the cash flows anomaly subsumes the accruals anomaly in maturity and decline stages, but not in the growth stage. Our findings contribute to the debate regarding the overlap between the two anomalies.     

The Effects of Financial Statement Information Proximity and Feedback on Cash Flow Forecasts*

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), in their joint Financial Statement Presentation project, are reconsidering the basic format of financial statements. The Boards’ preliminary discussions related to this joint project indicate that they intend to modify the required financial statements to increase the proximity of performance‐related information for each reported period. We provide evidence related to this potential change by investigating the effects of financial statement information proximity on investors’ ability to learn the forecast‐relevant time series properties of reported cash flows and accruals. We also examine the role feedback plays in this relationship. Our experimental results suggest that nonprofessional investors are able to more quickly learn the relation between current period cash flows and accruals and future cash flow realizations when financial statement information is presented in a single statement rather than separated into two statements. In addition, we find that nonprofessional investors exhibit lower levels of absolute forecast errors and less forecast dispersion when financial statement information is unified into a single statement. Finally, we provide evidence that nonprofessional investors who receive extensive outcome feedback on a single page initially learn more quickly and later, after learning has leveled off, accurately forecast more consistently than do investors who receive extensive or limited feedback spread across two pages. Overall, our results provide evidence on the effectiveness of alternate financial statement presentation formats and the potential usefulness of receiving more extensive feedback.     

投资者情绪、会计应计与超额回报——基于中国上市公司的实证分析

以我国上市公司1999至2007年的数据为样本,从行为金融学中投资者情绪的角度,深刻剖析投资者情绪对基于会计应计投资策略获得超额回报的影响。研究发现:1、持有会计应计比例低公司的股票,在投资者情绪低迷时期获得的超额回报会大于投资者情绪高昂时期;同样的,持有会计应计比例高公司的股票,在投资者情绪高昂时期产生的投资亏损要大于投资者情绪低迷时期;2、机构投资者持股比例小的公司的股价,更容易受投资者情绪的影响,因而,基于会计应计策略的超额回报在不同情绪下的差异要大于机构持股比例大的公司。本文试图从投资者情绪的角度,分析其对"应计异象"的影响,并且进一步证明,机构持股大小会干扰其影响的程度。     

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。     

机构投资者持股与内部人交易——基于中国A股市场的证据

作为证券监管机构的监管重点与难点，内部人交易一直以来备受关注。如何有效监督内部人交易，维护证券市场秩序与公平，保护中小投资者利益，是一个重要且具有现实意义的问题。基于2007-2015年中国A股上市公司内部人交易数据，文章探究了机构投资者持股对内部人交易获利能力的影响，发现：（1）机构投资者的存在会提高内部人买入行为的获利能力，会抑制内部人卖出行为的获利能力；（2）机构投资者对内部人交易的影响在卖出样本中存在截面差异，具体表现为在国有企业样本组和非两职合一样本组更显著；（3）机构投资者异质性分析发现，基金投资者会提升内部人买入交易的获利能力，合格的境外投资者会抑制内部人交易的总体获利能力，其他机构投资者一方面会促进买入行为的获利能力，一方面会抑制卖出行为的获利能力；（4）机制路径检验发现，机构投资者对内部人卖出交易的抑制作用存在提高公司盈余质量、提升治理水平和改善信息披露水平三种机制路径。总之，文章验证了机构投资者影响内部人交易的研究推论。     

An Empirical Analysis of the Effects of Online Trading on Stock Price and Trading Volume Reactions to Earnings Announcements*

This study provides evidence regarding the effects of online trading on stock price and trading volume reactions to quarterly earnings announcements. We test for differences in stock price and volume reactions to quarterly earnings announcements between a period with a significant amount of online trading (1996‐99) and a period without online trading (1992‐95). We conjecture that online trading has increased the proportion of naive investors in the market. We predict that this will result in (1) a decrease in the average precision of investor information prior to earnings announcements leading to higher earnings response coefficients (ERCs), (2) an increase in differential interpretation of earnings leading to higher trading volume reactions that are unrelated to price change, and (3) a decrease in differential prior precision leading to a decrease in the association between trading volume and absolute price change. We find evidence consistent with all three predictions. Our findings are relevant for assessing the validity of concerns about online trading expressed by regulators and the validity of theoretical models of trade with asymmetrically informed investors.     

Are Analysts' Cash Flow Forecasts Naïve Extensions of Their Own Earnings Forecasts?

We examine the sophistication of analysts' cash flow forecasts to better understand what accrual adjustments, if any, analysts make when forecasting cash flows. As a preliminary step, we first demonstrate that prior empirical tests used to evaluate the sophistication of analysts' cash flow forecasts are not diagnostic. We then present three sets of evidence to triangulate our conclusion that analysts' cash flow forecasts incorporate meaningful accrual adjustments. First, we review a stratified random sample of 90 analyst reports and find that the majority of these analysts include explicit adjustments for working capital and other accruals in their cash flow forecasts. Second, using a large sample of analysts' cash flow forecasts from 1993–2008, we find that these forecasts outperform time‐series cash flow forecasts in correctly predicting the sign and magnitude of accruals. Finally, we find a significant market reaction to analysts' cash flow forecast revisions, suggesting that investors find these revisions informative. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that analysts' cash flow forecasts are not simply naïve extensions of their own earnings forecasts, but that they reflect meaningful and useful accrual adjustments. These findings are relevant to researchers who examine analysts' cash flow forecasts in a variety of settings, and to investors and practitioners who employ these forecasts for valuation purposes.     

Trader Participation in Disclosure: Implications of Interactions with Management

Technological advances are creating a shift in the information disclosure environment allowing more investors to interact with management. We examine three key levels of trader-management interaction to assess the accuracy of traders' market-tested value estimates and resulting market price. These data require an engaging experiment and a complex, contextually rich asset, which we create by playing a popular gaming app before the experiment. Participants view financial information, ask management questions, estimate value, and trade. We find that receiving non-personalized question responses improves trader estimates of value and market price efficiency relative to when traders ask questions but do not expect a response. This occurs because traders exert more effort estimating value and trading. However, receiving personalized versus non-personalized responses harms value estimates and market efficiency. This occurs because traders receiving personalized responses fixate on the interaction with management, dividing their attention and diverting it away from valuing and trading the asset.     

Trading Prior to the Disclosure of Material Information: Evidence from Regulation Fair Disclosure Form 8‐Ks*

Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD) Form 8‐K filings provide a venue where managers release information to the market as a whole that they designate as being material. Using this setting, we study trading patterns immediately prior to the public disclosure of material information. We offer three main results. First, using both intraday and daily trading data, we find abnormal trading volume of 21 percent (13 percent) in the hour (day) prior to the public disclosure, respectively. Second, we find that this pre‐disclosure abnormal trading volume is concentrated in firms that are smaller, have more growth opportunities, issue fewer voluntary disclosures, and have weaker external monitoring. Finally, we find that this pre‐disclosure volume is concentrated in subsamples in which the information relates to a firm's material contracts, a firm holds investor/analyst conferences, and there is insider trading activity in a firm's shares. Our results do not concentrate in a small number of firms or industries, and do not appear to be explained by the form through which managers first release the material information (e.g., Form 8‐K, press release, website posting, or social media). Our results are also robust to controlling for the firm's other filings and peer filings that occur around the disclosure. Overall, the trading patterns we document may show that, inconsistent with the spirit of Reg FD, a subset of investors trade on information managers deem material prior to its broad, public release.     

Insider Trading Restrictions and Insiders’ Supply of Information: Evidence from Earnings Smoothing

We exploit the setting of first‐time enforcement of insider trading laws to investigate the relationship between insider trading opportunities and insiders’ supply of information. Insider trading opportunities motivate insiders to reduce their supply of information by concealing firm performance, thereby increasing their information advantage over outsiders, resulting in higher insider trading profits. Using data from 40 countries over the 1988–2004 period, we find that reporting opacity, as captured by earnings smoothness, decreases significantly after the initial enforcement of insider trading laws in countries with strong legal institutions. The decrease in earnings smoothness is positively related to the strictness of insider trading laws. The decrease in earnings smoothness is also more pronounced for countries that have more persistent insider trading law enforcement and for countries that impose more severe penalties on insider trading cases. Further analyses show that the decrease in earnings smoothness following insider trading enforcement is concentrated among firms that are not closely held and among high‐growth firms. In addition to uncovering a channel through which insider trading restrictions affect the information environment, our evidence highlights the importance of country‐ and firm‐level governance structures in determining the consequences of insider trading restrictions.     

创业板退市公司中小投资者补偿机制研究

创业板作为证券市场一个高成长版块,其高市盈率一直吸引着广大中小投资者的目光,但许多上市公司大股东和高管的违法行为屡屡出现,上市公司面临被强制退市的可能,为保护中小投资者利益,对其受损进行补偿就显得格外重要.为此分析了建立和完善中小投资者补偿机制的必要性、法理依据,以及相关建议.     

To Guide or Not to Guide? Causes and Consequences of Stopping Quarterly Earnings Guidance

In recent years, quarterly earnings guidance has been harshly criticized for inducing “managerial short‐termism” and other ills. Managers are, therefore, urged by influential institutions to cease guidance. We examine empirically the causes of such guidance cessation and find that poor operating performance — decreased earnings, missing analyst forecasts, and lower anticipated profitability — is the major reason firms stop quarterly guidance. After guidance cessation, we do not find an appreciable increase in long‐term investment once managers free themselves from investors’ myopia. Contrary to the claim that firms would provide more alternative, forward‐looking disclosures in lieu of the guidance, we find that such disclosures are curtailed. We also find a deterioration in the information environment of guidance stoppers in the form of increased analyst forecast errors and forecast dispersion and a decrease in analyst coverage. Taken together, our evidence indicates that guidance stoppers are primarily troubled firms and stopping guidance does not benefit either the stoppers or their investors.     

女性是出色的股票交易者吗？一个实验研究

金融市场存在性别比例失衡问题，男性在金融行业中占有主导地位。虽然现有行为金融文献研究发现男性与女性投资者在金融市场中的一些行为存在差异，比如股票交易频率（Fellner and Maciejovsky，2007）和股票投资意愿（Bannier and Neuberty，2016），但是，男性与女性投资者股票交易决策偏见特征及其影响机理还尚不明晰。为此，文章以处置效应为研究视角，依据Frydman and Rangel（2014）的实验设计，实验检验了男性和女性投资者的处置效应差异及其内在影响机理，旨在回答女性投资者的股票交易决策是否优于男性。实验结果显示：女性投资者的股票交易决策并不优于男性，这主要表现为女性的处置效应显著高于男性；女性更多地非理性持有亏损股票，而男性较多地理性持有盈利股票；女性投资者的感知后悔与处置效应显著正相关，而男性投资者的感知后悔与处置效应不具有显著相关关系；与男性相比，女性投资者的感知后悔对处置效应的影响更强。这表明女性投资者的股票交易决策更容易受到后悔情绪的影响，偏离理性决策。文章厘清了处置效应的性别差异及其影响机理，丰富了处置效应性别差异的理论解释。相关部门应该加强女性投资者的宣传教育工作，倡导理性投资。女性投资者应该树立理性的投资理念，采取措施减少情绪体验对股票交易决策的不利影响。