The Predictive Value of Expenses Excluded from Pro Forma Earnings

We investigate the informational properties of pro forma earnings. This increasingly popular measure of earnings excludes certain expenses that the company deems non-recurring, non-cash, or otherwise unimportant for understanding the future value of the firm. We find, however, that these expenses are far from unimportant. Higher levels of exclusions lead to predictably lower future cash flows. We also find that investors do not fully appreciate the lower cash flow implications at the time of the earnings announcement. A trading strategy based on the excluded expenses yields a large positive abnormal return in the years following the announcement, and persists after controlling for various risk factors and other anomalies.     

机会主义盈余管理、投资者情绪与股价崩盘风险

股价崩盘风险受到哪些因素影响一直是学者和资本市场关注的热点问题之一,本文考察了机会主义盈余管理行为如何影响股价崩盘风险。本文选取2007-2016年中国上市公司数据进行研究,结果发现:上市公司的盈余管理程度与股价崩盘风险呈显著正相关关系;相对于非机会主义,机会主义的盈余管理对股价崩盘风险的影响更大;无论是盈余管理程度、还是机会主义盈余管理行为,对股价崩盘风险的影响都随着投资者情绪高涨而加大。本文拓展了盈余管理与股价崩盘风险之间关系的研究,有助于投资者全面理解机会主义盈余管理对股价崩盘风险的影响。     

Investor Sophistication and Voluntary Disclosures

This paper studies voluntary disclosures in a model in which investors probabilistically become informed about whether a firm has received information. The firm's value is established via a first price, sealed bid, common value auction. The paper demonstrates that the threshold level determining whether the firm withholds or discloses information uniformly declines in the probability investors are informed. The paper also shows that, notwithstanding the risk-neutrality of investors, the expected selling price of the firm strictly decreases (increases) in the probability individual investors are informed when that probability is small (large). These results follow from winner's curse effects.     

Implications of Components of Income Excluded from Pro Forma Earnings for Future Profitability and Equity Valuation

Abstract:  This study addresses three research questions relating to total exclusions, special items, and other exclusions. Are each of these pro forma exclusion components forecasting irrelevant? Are each of the exclusion components value irrelevant? Are the valuation multiples on the exclusion components justified by their ability to forecast future profitability as predicted by the Ohlson (1999) model? Findings are generally consistent with the market-inefficiency results presented in Doyle et al. (2003) . Total exclusions are valued negatively by the market despite the prediction that total exclusions will be valued positively. Valuation results also suggest that stocks with positive other exclusions are overpriced.     

Sentiment Metrics and Investor Demand

Recent work suggests that sentiment traders shift from safer to more speculative stocks when sentiment increases. Exploiting these cross‐sectional patterns and changes in share ownership, we find that sentiment metrics capture institutional rather than individual investors’ demand shocks. We investigate the underlying economic mechanisms and find that common institutional investment styles (e.g., risk management, momentum trading) explain a significant portion of the relation between institutions and sentiment.     

Investor Sentiment and Option Prices

This paper examines whether investor sentiment about the stockmarket affects prices of the S&P 500 options. The findingsreveal that the index option volatility smile is steeper (flatter)and the risk-neutral skewness of monthly index return is more(less) negative when market sentiment becomes more bearish (bullish).These significant relations are robust and become stronger whenthere are more impediments to arbitrage in index options. Theycannot be explained by rational perfect-market-based optionpricing models. Changes in investor sentiment help explain timevariation in the slope of index option smile and risk-neutralskewness beyond factors suggested by the current models.     

Investor Sentiment and Corporate Disclosure

This paper investigates how firms react strategically to investor sentiment via their disclosure policies in an attempt to influence the sentiment‐induced biases in expectations. Proxying for sentiment using the Michigan Consumer Confidence Index, we show that during low‐sentiment periods, managers increase forecasts to “walk up” current estimates of future earnings over long horizons. In contrast, during periods of high sentiment, managers reduce their long‐horizon forecasting activity. Further, while there is an association between sentiment and the biases in analysts' estimates of future earnings, management disclosures vary with sentiment even after controlling for analyst pessimism, indicating that managers attempt to communicate with investors at large, and not just analysts. Our study provides evidence that firms' long‐horizon disclosure choices reflect managers' desire to maintain optimistic earnings valuations.     

Investor Sentiment and Pre-IPO Markets

We examine whether irrational behavior among small (retail) investors drives post‐IPO prices. We use prices from the grey market (the when‐issued market that precedes European IPOs) to proxy for small investors' valuations. High grey market prices (indicating overoptimism) are a very good predictor of first‐day aftermarket prices, while low grey market prices (indicating excessive pessimism) are not. Moreover, we find long‐run price reversal only following high grey market prices. This asymmetry occurs because larger (institutional) investors can choose between keeping the shares they are allocated in the IPO, and reselling them when small investors are overoptimistic.     

Investor Sentiment and REIT Returns

Recent advances in the field of behavioral finance have given a fillip to the use of behavioral factors in asset pricing models. This study adds to the understanding of the REIT return generating process by exploring the behavioral impact of investor sentiment on REIT returns. The results show that when investors are optimistic (pessimistic), REIT returns become higher (lower). These findings are robust when conventional control variables are considered. Empirical analysis indicates steady erosion in the importance of the default and term structure interest rate variables previously considered as important determinants of REIT returns. Previous noise trading papers that consider the impact of institutional traders conclude that institutional investors cannot arbitrage away noise trader risk. The results of this paper find an exception in the case of small REITs. Examination of REITs based on size reveals that the return generating process of small REITs differs from that of mid-size and large REITs. Analysis of the return generating process by performance shows high performance REITs are more sensitive to the independent variables in the model as compared to the low and mid performance REITs.     

Retail Investor Sentiment and Return Comovements

Using a database of more than 1.85 million retail investor transactions over 1991–1996, we show that these trades are systematically correlated—that is, individuals buy (or sell) stocks in concert. Moreover, consistent with noise trader models, we find that systematic retail trading explains return comovements for stocks with high retail concentration (i.e., small‐cap, value, lower institutional ownership, and lower‐priced stocks), especially if these stocks are also costly to arbitrage. Macroeconomic news and analyst earnings forecast revisions do not explain these results. Collectively, our findings support a role for investor sentiment in the formation of returns.     

Positive Feedback Trading and Investor Sentiment

This article examines how investor sentiment affects positive feedback trading behavior. By analyzing the daily closing total return of CSI 300 index and its individual returns of stocks, we find that relatively high or low sentiment induces active positive feedback trading. With a specific indicator of sentiment, we explain the microstructure setting of the relationship between positive feedback trading and sentiment. We adopt the classical feedback model from Sentana and Wadhwani (1992) to measure positive feedback trading behavior. By adding sentiment factor to the model, we successfully explain how sentiment influences the behavior of both feedback traders and rational investors. The empirical findings suggest that positive feedback traders are more likely to trade when the prices of most securities move forward together. When the sentiment of feedback traders is at an intermediate level, the feedback trading behavior is insignificant.     

Market Response to Investor Sentiment

This paper reconsiders the effect of investor sentiment on stock prices. Our main contribution is that, in addition to the intermediate term return predictability, we also analyze the immediate price reaction to the publication of survey‐based investor sentiment indicators. We find that the sign of the immediate market response is the same as that of the predictability at intermediate time horizons. This is consistent with underreaction to cash flow news or with investor sentiment being related to mispricing. It is inconsistent with the alternative explanations of a rational response to cash flow news or sentiment indicators providing information about future expected returns.     

Investor Inattention and Friday Earnings Announcements

Does limited attention among investors affect stock returns? We compare the response to earnings announcements on Friday, when investor inattention is more likely, to the response on other weekdays. If inattention influences stock prices, we should observe less immediate response and more drift for Friday announcements. Indeed, Friday announcements have a 15% lower immediate response and a 70% higher delayed response. A portfolio investing in differential Friday drift earns substantial abnormal returns. In addition, trading volume is 8% lower around Friday announcements. These findings support explanations of post‐earnings announcement drift based on underreaction to information caused by limited attention.     

Investor Sentiment and the Closed-End Fund Puzzle

This paper examines the proposition that fluctuations in discounts of closed-end funds are driven by changes in individual investor sentiment. The theory implies that discounts on various funds move together, that new funds get started when seasoned funds sell at a premium or a small discount, and that discounts are correlated with prices of other securities affected by the same investor sentiment. The evidence supports these predictions. In particular, we find that both closed-end funds and small stocks tend to be held by individual investors, and that the discounts on closed-end funds narrow when small stocks do well.     

投资者情绪、风险承担与股票收益

本文从整体投资者情绪和投资者情绪分歧两个维度,考察投资者情绪截面特征对股票定价的影响,并探究投资者情绪对股票定价的影响机制。一方面,分别使用投资者情绪横截面均值和方差表征整体投资者情绪和投资者情绪分歧,并构建同时包含整体投资者情绪和投资者情绪分歧的资产定价模型。另一方面,使用沪深A股上市公司2007—2020年面板数据,实证检验上述理论模型的结论。理论和实证研究表明,整体投资者情绪和投资者情绪分歧均显著正向影响股票收益,两者的交互作用负向影响股票收益;整体投资者情绪和投资者情绪分歧均显著提高风险承担水平,而风险承担水平的提高会增加股票收益,即风险承担在投资者情绪对股票收益的影响中起到了中介作用。     

Overconfidence,Investor Sentiment,and Evolution

We examine the survival of nonrational investors in an evolutionary game model with a population dynamic for a large economy. The dynamic indicates that the growth rate of wealth accumulation drives the evolutionary process. We focus our analysis on the survival of overconfidence and investor sentiment. We find that underconfidence or pessimism cannot survive, but moderate overconfidence or optimism can survive and even dominate, particularly when the fundamental risk is large. These findings provide new empirical implications for the survivability of active fund management. Our results lend support to the relevance of the psychology of investors in studying financial markets. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: G10, G14.     

Ownership, Investor Protection and Earnings Expectations

Abstract:  This study examines the interactive influence of corporate ownership, corporate governance and investor protection on the incorporation of current value shocks in the accounting earnings of European companies. This influence is investigated not only by means of the association between current news and current earnings but also with respect to the association of the same news with expected future earnings, and its persistence. Consistent with the contractual explanation of accounting conservatism, it is shown that the accounting behaviour examined is a function of the demand created by shareholders, and that the institutional arrangements in force are of lesser significance in the presence of widely held ownership. On the other hand, greater separation between supervision and management and stronger investor protection are seen to be influential under close ownership, as these are shown to curb aggressive accounting in the form of a persistently lower recognition of bad news in earnings. Evidence is also provided that stricter corporate governance practices in Europe can substitute for weaknesses in investor protection provisions in law.     

投资者情绪、宏观经济变量及股票市场的关系研究

选取2010年7月至2017年7月沪深300指数、5个投资者情绪代理变量、11个宏观经济变量的月度数据,首先通过主成分分析法构造出投资者情绪因子、经济增长因子和货币因子,然后采用VAR模型研究了这三个因子与沪深300指数之间的关系,结果发现:沪深300指数除了受其自身滞后项的影响,投资者情绪也起到了较强的正向作用;投资者情绪则主要受到了沪深300指数和货币因子的影响,且沪深300指数从第4期开始成为最重要的因素;经济增长因子主要受自身影响;而货币因子除了受自身影响外,经济增长因子也起着较大的作用。     

Investor Sentiment and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns

We study how investor sentiment affects the cross‐section of stock returns. We predict that a wave of investor sentiment has larger effects on securities whose valuations are highly subjective and difficult to arbitrage. Consistent with this prediction, we find that when beginning‐of‐period proxies for sentiment are low, subsequent returns are relatively high for small stocks, young stocks, high volatility stocks, unprofitable stocks, non‐dividend‐paying stocks, extreme growth stocks, and distressed stocks. When sentiment is high, on the other hand, these categories of stock earn relatively low subsequent returns.