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Author: Anwer S. Ahmed Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 38
Book Description
This study investigates whether financial analysts correctly weight cash flows, accruals and components of accruals in forecasting future earnings. This examination is in the spirit of Sloan (1996) who documents evidence that investors do not correctly distinguish between the cash flow and accrual components of earnings. We find that analysts do distinguish between accruals and cash flows although they generally underweight the information in both accruals and cash flows. More importantly, we find that analysts do not distinguish between discretionary and non-discretionary accruals even though discretionary accruals are less persistent than non-discretionary accruals. Our findings complement and extend the findings in recent studies on analyst forecast inefficiency with respect to the information in accrual and cash flow components of earnings using alternative research designs [Teoh and Wong (1998), Bradshaw, Richardson and Sloan (2000), Barth and Hutton (2000)]. Analysts are considered to play an important role as information intermediaries in educating investors about the future prospects of firms. They are trained in analyzing financial data and have industry expertise as well as detailed firm-specific knowledge through contacts with managers. Thus, one would expect analysts to correctly incorporate the information in earnings components specifically discretionary versus non-discretionary accruals. Our evidence complements evidence in recent studies that raises questions about the ability of analysts, on-average, to correctly incorporate the information in accruals and cash flows in forecasting future earnings. This in turn implies that other outsiders are also likely to find it difficult to undo earnings management via discretionary accruals and therefore provides a rationale for the existence of earnings management.
Author: Anwer S. Ahmed Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 38
Book Description
This study investigates whether financial analysts correctly weight cash flows, accruals and components of accruals in forecasting future earnings. This examination is in the spirit of Sloan (1996) who documents evidence that investors do not correctly distinguish between the cash flow and accrual components of earnings. We find that analysts do distinguish between accruals and cash flows although they generally underweight the information in both accruals and cash flows. More importantly, we find that analysts do not distinguish between discretionary and non-discretionary accruals even though discretionary accruals are less persistent than non-discretionary accruals. Our findings complement and extend the findings in recent studies on analyst forecast inefficiency with respect to the information in accrual and cash flow components of earnings using alternative research designs [Teoh and Wong (1998), Bradshaw, Richardson and Sloan (2000), Barth and Hutton (2000)]. Analysts are considered to play an important role as information intermediaries in educating investors about the future prospects of firms. They are trained in analyzing financial data and have industry expertise as well as detailed firm-specific knowledge through contacts with managers. Thus, one would expect analysts to correctly incorporate the information in earnings components specifically discretionary versus non-discretionary accruals. Our evidence complements evidence in recent studies that raises questions about the ability of analysts, on-average, to correctly incorporate the information in accruals and cash flows in forecasting future earnings. This in turn implies that other outsiders are also likely to find it difficult to undo earnings management via discretionary accruals and therefore provides a rationale for the existence of earnings management.
Author: Ramesh Narayana Chari Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 140
Book Description
This research investigates whether financial analysts fully incorporate the information contained in accrual and cash flow components of current earnings when forecasting future earnings. I present evidence that analysts fail to fully incorporate the implications of these components for earnings persistence in their forecasts. Analysts' appear to ignore information in past earnings to a greater extent when the magnitude of accruals in prior year earnings is large relative to cash flows. I find that information in these components can be used to improve analysts' forecasts. This improvement is most evident for firms which have a high incidence of accruals in prior year earnings. I demonstrate the economic significance of improving analysts' forecasts by implementing a trading strategy that predicts stock price changes. This trading strategy yields significantly positive risk-adjusted abnormal returns. These results suggest that analysts' forecasting inefficiency (see Mendenhall, 1991) is potentially rooted in their misperceptions about the implications of accruals and cash flows for earnings persistence. These findings are useful to accounting standard-setters and to capital markets research that uses analysts' forecasts to proxy for earnings expectations.
Author: Sundaresh Ramnath Publisher: Now Publishers Inc ISBN: 1601981627 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 125
Book Description
Financial Analysts' Forecasts and Stock Recommendations reviews research related to the role of financial analysts in the allocation of resources in capital markets. The authors provide an organized look at the literature, with particular attention to important questions that remain open for further research. They focus research related to analysts' decision processes and the usefulness of their forecasts and stock recommendations. Some of the major surveys were published in the early 1990's and since then no less than 250 papers related to financial analysts have appeared in the nine major research journals that we used to launch our review of the literature. The research has evolved from descriptions of the statistical properties of analysts' forecasts to investigations of the incentives and decision processes that give rise to those properties. However, in spite of this broader focus, much of analysts' decision processes and the market's mechanism of drawing a useful consensus from the combination of individual analysts' decisions remain hidden in a black box. What do we know about the relevant valuation metrics and the mechanism by which analysts and investors translate forecasts into present equity values? What do we know about the heuristics relied upon by analysts and the market and the appropriateness of their use? Financial Analysts' Forecasts and Stock Recommendations examines these and other questions and concludes by highlighting area for future research.
Author: Mary E. Barth Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 66
Book Description
We test predictions relating to the role of financial analysts in aiding investors' assessment of the different valuation implications of the cash flow and accrual components of earnings. First, we examine whether analysts revise their forecasts of future earnings in anticipation of predictable accrual reversals. Then, we examine whether share prices reflect predictable accrual reversals differently depending on analyst activity. Our findings suggest that analysts act as sophisticated information intermediaries in that some analysts are able to identify firms with less persistent accruals. However, share prices do not reflect the information conveyed by analyst forecast revisions. Rather, investors appear to expect the same persistence in earnings, regardless of its cash flow and accrual components and regardless of analyst activity, until the accruals reverse. Thus, incorporating information from analyst activity substantially improves short-term returns to an accrual-based trading strategy.
Author: Minsup Song Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 42
Book Description
We examine the relation between analyst coverage and accruals quality. Because accrual accounting requires managers to estimate the future economic consequences of current events, accruals reflect estimation errors and potential managerial opportunism. This may lower accruals quality and provide noisier signals of firm value. If investors turn to analysts for supplemental information, then demand for analyst services will increase as accruals quality decreases. Because lower accruals quality increases the value of their services, analysts have greater incentives to cover firms with low accruals quality. Our results support these hypotheses. Although firms with low accruals quality have greater analyst coverage and forecast revisions, we also find they have larger forecast errors and dispersion. Thus, analysts are unable to fully resolve the uncertainty in accruals. This is consistent with accruals reflecting information risk.
Author: Mark T Bradshaw Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Existing research indicates that firms with high accruals are more likely to experience future earnings problems, but that investors' expectations, as reflected in stock prices, do not appear to anticipate these problems. In this paper, we directly examine the published opinions of two types of professional investor intermediaries to see if they provide investors with information concerning the future earnings problems experienced by firms with high accruals. First, we examine the earnings forecasts of sell-side analysts. We show that analysts' earnings forecasts do not incorporate the predictable future earnings declines associated with high accruals. Second, we examine the behavior of independent auditors. We find no evidence that auditors signal the higher likelihood of GAAP violations associated with high accruals through either their audit opinions or through auditor changes. Overall, our evidence indicates that analysts and auditors do not alert investors to the future earnings problems associated with high accruals, thus corroborating previous findings that investors do not appear to anticipate these problems.
Author: Dennis C. Mueller Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 0521306930 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 392
Book Description
Discovers that there are persistent differences in market power among large U. S. companies by analyzing data for the 1000 largest manufacturing firms in 1950 and 1972. Considers the influence of risk, sales, diversification, growth and managerial control on long run profitability.
Author: Frederic S. Mishkin Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0226531929 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 184
Book Description
A Rational Expectations Approach to Macroeconometrics pursues a rational expectations approach to the estimation of a class of models widely discussed in the macroeconomics and finance literature: those which emphasize the effects from unanticipated, rather than anticipated, movements in variables. In this volume, Fredrick S. Mishkin first theoretically develops and discusses a unified econometric treatment of these models and then shows how to estimate them with an annotated computer program.
Author: Anwer S. Ahmed
Author: Anwer S. Ahmed
Author: Ramesh Narayana Chari
Author: Sundaresh Ramnath
Author: Mary E. Barth
Author: Mary E. Barth
Author: Minsup Song
Author: Mark T Bradshaw
Author: Dennis C. Mueller
Author: Frederic S. Mishkin
Author: Werner Fransiscus Marcel De Bondt