Insider trading and the post-earnings-announcement drift

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.We show that trades by corporate insiders after an earnings announcement determine in part the extent of the post-earnings announcement drift anomaly. Contrarian trades mitigate the under-reaction to earnings announcements, and confirmatory trades allow for price discovery with price movements continuing in the same direction of the earnings surprise. These results are consistent with insider trading being a mechanism that provides relevant information on transitory or permanent changes to the earnings process allowing the market to make appropriate inferences about the nature of the earnings surprise

Future Realized Return, Firm-Specific Risk and the Implied Expected Return

ArticleThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.In this paper, we propose a novel approach to derive a firm-specific measure of expected return. It builds on recent accounting-based valuation models developed by Clubb (2013) and Ashton and Wang (2013). The measure is intrinsically linked to commonly used financial ratios including book-to-market, (forward) earnings yield, dividend-to-price as well as growth and past returns. The empirical evidence shows that it is significantly positively associated with future realized stock returns and also significantly correlates with commonly used risk characteristics in a theoretically predictable manner. The results are likely to be of interest to practitioners and managers in making capital allocation decisions and to academics in need of proxies for firms’ discount rates and expected returns

Transparency, disclosure and the pricing of future earnings in the European market

Paper presented at "Accounting at a Tipping Point", the American Accounting Association (AAA) Annual Meeting held in New York City on August 1-5, 2009. Final version published in Journal of Business Finance and Accounting until title Accruals, Disclosure and the Pricing of Future Earnings in the European Market. Available online at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/The present study examines the role of disclosure in assisting market participants to form expectations of future earnings by observing the accrual content of reported earnings. Accounting research has been focusing on investigating the ability of accounting numbers and practices to provide relevant information to market participants. In the context of the association between market returns and accounting numbers or practices, conclusions can be only drawn on the effect of these numbers and practices at an average level of disclosure. Here it is shown that these conclusions can be significantly altered at varying levels of disclosure. Employing a sample of European firms and their Transparency and Disclosure ratings conducted by Standard and Poor’s, we show how disclosure and accruals jointly affect earnings expectations that are included in current stock returns. It is shown that both the joint effect of disclosure and accruals depends on the magnitude, sign and the nature of accruals (i.e. current and non-current accruals), and that increased disclosure appears to correct overstated expectations arising mostly from the extensive use of current accruals and negative non-current accruals

Accruals quality vis-a-vis disclosure quality: Substitutes or complements?

The impact of accruals quality and disclosure quality on stock returns is a topical issue in market-based accounting research. Most of the debate is centred on their incremental ability to predict future earnings. Recent studies suggest that higher information risk proxied by either lower accruals quality or lower disclosure quality results in higher stock returns. This paper examines the relationship between accruals quality and disclosure quality, and investigates whether they are complements or substitutes in explaining the time-series variation in portfolio returns. Applying portfolio groupings, we find a positive association between accruals quality and disclosure quality, suggesting that firms with higher disclosure quality engage less in earnings management and have higher accruals quality. Asset pricing tests show that an accruals quality factor and a disclosure quality factor explain the time-series variation in the excess returns of similar sets of portfolios. This suggests that they contain similar information and confirms the substitutive nature of accruals quality and disclosure quality factors

Accounting conservatism in expected earnings : a European study

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

How far does financial reporting allow us to judge whether M&A activity is successful?

Evidence from share price returns suggests that acquisitions destroy value. On the other hand, evidence from accounting measures of performance suggests that acquisitions give rise to synergies and therefore potentially create value. In this paper, we first revisit the UK evidence using an updated sample, and confirm that these findings still hold, and importantly hold in the period following the introduction of FRS10. We then reconcile the (apparently conflicting) findings from these market-based and accounting-based approaches. Using accounting measures of performance, we confirm the presence of synergies developed during acquisitions. Finally we show that post-acquisition abnormal returns are associated with news of synergistic benefits conveyed in the financial statements

How far does financial reporting allow us to judge whether M&A activity is successful?

Evidence from share price returns suggests that acquisitions destroy value. On the other hand, evidence from accounting measures of performance suggests that acquisitions give rise to synergies and therefore potentially create value. In this paper, we first revisit the UK evidence using an updated sample, and confirm that these findings still hold, and importantly hold in the period following the introduction of FRS10. We then reconcile the (apparently conflicting) findings from these market-based and accounting-based approaches. Using accounting measures of performance, we confirm the presence of synergies developed during acquisitions. Finally we show that post-acquisition abnormal returns are associated with news of synergistic benefits conveyed in the financial statements