Download or read book Aggregate Earnings and Why They Matter written by Ray Ball and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 53 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The accounting literature has traditionally focused on firm-level studies to examine the capital market implications of earnings and other accounting variables. We first develop the arguments for studying capital market implications at the aggregate level as well. A central issue is that diversification makes equity investors at least partially and potentially almost completely immune to several firm-level properties of earnings by holding diversified portfolios. Diversification is particularly important when assessing the welfare consequences of random errors in accounting measurement (imperfect accruals) and, to the extent it is independent across firms, of deliberate manipulation (earnings management). Consequently, some firm-level metrics of association, timeliness, value relevance, conservatism and other earnings properties do not map easily into investor welfare. Similarly, earnings-related risk manifests itself to equity investors largely through systematic earnings risk (covariation with aggregate earnings and/or other macroeconomic indicators). We conclude that the design and evaluation of financial reporting must adopt at least in part an aggregate perspective. We then summarize the literature in accounting, economics and finance on aggregate earnings and stock prices. Our review highlights the importance of studying earnings at the aggregate level.

Download or read book Aggregate Earnings and Market Returns written by Wen He and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kothari, Lewellen and Warner (2006) document that in the U.S. market aggregate earnings changes are negatively related to contemporaneous market returns. This is puzzling given the well-documented evidence that firm-level earnings changes are positively related to stock returns. In this study we use a sample of 28 countries to provide international evidence on this important issue. In pooled cross-country and time-series regressions, we find that aggregate earnings changes are positively associated with contemporaneous market returns. When we run time-series regressions of market returns on aggregate earnings changes for each country, we find only four countries have negative coefficients for aggregate earnings changes and none of these negative coefficients are statistically significant. This evidence contrasts the U.S. evidence. Furthermore aggregate earnings exhibits substantial persistence, suggesting current earnings convey information about future earnings. Finally we find that the earnings-returns relation at aggregate becomes less positive in countries with more transparent accounting disclosure. This result supports the argument proposed by Sadka and Sadka (2009) that predictability of aggregate earnings leads to the negative relation between aggregate earnings and market returns in the U.S.

Download or read book Aggregate Earnings Stock Market Returns and Macroeconomic Activity written by Lakshmanan Shivakumar and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anilowski, Feng and Skinner (Journal of Accounting and Economics, 2006, this issue) examine the relationship between aggregate earnings guidance, aggregate earnings news and market returns. They provide evidence that changes in aggregate proportions of downward or upward earnings guidance are associated with aggregate earnings news and weakly associated with market returns. However, the study is unable to establish causality or the precise nature of the relationship between aggregate earnings guidance and market returns. To better understand the relationship, this paper analyses the relation between aggregate earnings, stock market returns and the macroeconomy. I empirically document that aggregate earnings primarily contain information about future inflation. This inflation information in aggregate earnings causes aggregate earnings to be negatively correlated with stock returns. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research.

Download or read book Tilting the Evidence written by Ryan T. Ball and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We examine whether the contribution of firm-level accounting earnings to the informativeness of the aggregate is tilted towards earnings with specific financial reporting characteristics. Specifically, we investigate whether considering the volatility of earnings relative to the volatility of cash flows at the firm level (smoothness) increases the informativeness of aggregate earnings for future real GDP, and if so, whether macroeconomic forecasters use this information efficiently. This study innovates on recently developed mixed data sampling methods in the construction of an aggregate earnings growth measure by allowing each firm's contribution to the aggregate to vary as a function of earnings smoothness. We find that the aggregate is tilted towards firms with smoother earnings and that this composition of aggregate earnings outperforms traditional weighting schemes in the association with future GDP growth. Further, this tilted aggregate has a stronger positive association with forecast revisions; in fact, analysts who utilize earnings the most in their forecasts appear to fully impound the informativeness of earnings smoothness. Our results synthesize and span parallel yet distinct streams of research on the role of accounting earnings in firm-level and macroeconomic outcomes and suggest an important role for financial reporting characteristics in the aggregate.

Download or read book Is the U S Unique International Evidence on the Aggregate Earnings Returns Association written by Lindsey A. Gallo and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We exploit differences in institutional and macroeconomic environments to shed light on what drives variation in the aggregate earnings-returns relation over time within the U.S. and across countries. We find that both intertemporal and cross-country variation in the aggregate earnings-returns association are driven primarily by two factors, namely, the monetary policy news conveyed in aggregate earnings and the market reaction to that news, which suggest that the strength of the discount rate news channel plays an important role in explaining the aggregate earnings-returns relation both within and outside of the U.S. We further find that institutional characteristics have a significant effect on the information content of aggregate earnings and hence on the aggregate earnings-returns association--aggregate earnings are more informative about policy changes in countries with stronger investor protection and greater accounting transparency. Overall, our study provides new evidence on what drives the aggregate earnings-returns relation across the globe.

Download or read book Evidence Taken by the Interstate Commerce Commission in the Matter of Proposed Advances in Freight Rates by Carriers August to December 1910 written by and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book On Earnings Manipulation and the Cost of Capital written by Jeremy Bertomeu and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This article develops further results on earnings management and the cost of capital, which complement Strobl (Journal of Accounting Research, forth.). Within a simplified version of the model, I illustrate the existing linkage between earning management activities and firms' cost of capital, even if the individual fraud risk is diversifiable. I identify plausible conditions under which the cost of capital will increase with more earnings management and show that the level of managerial ownership and enforcement are important testable determinants of this association. Lastly, I argue that, in the absence of an observable aggregate wealth portfolio, whether accounting quality is informative on firms' beta or a separate risk factor are observationally equivalent propositions. I then show that an aggregate accounting quality measure would provide information about expected returns.

Download or read book Boards and Shareholders in European Listed Companies written by Massimo Belcredi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With contributions by distinguished scholars from legal and financial backgrounds, this collection of essays analyses four main topics in the corporate governance of European listed firms: (i) board structure, composition and functioning and their interaction with ownership structure; (ii) board remuneration; (iii) shareholder activism and (iv) corporate governance disclosure based on the 'comply or explain' approach. The authors provide new comparative evidence and analyse its implications for the policy debate. They challenge the conventional wisdom that corporate governance in European firms was systematically dysfunctional. While proposals aimed at increasing disclosure and accountability are usually well-grounded, caution is suggested when bringing forward regulatory changes with respect to proposals targeting specific governance arrangements, especially in the fields of board composition and shareholder activism. They argue that the 'comply or explain' principle should be retained and further efforts should be exercised to enhance disclosure.

Download or read book Predictability of Aggregate Earnings written by Aydin Uysal and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study, I provide evidence that aggregate earnings are predictable based on the cointegration relation between earnings and cash flows implied by the accounting identity that earnings is the sum of the cash flows and the accruals. I first show that earnings and cash flows follow random walks with drifts while accruals is stationary with zero mean. I then show that earnings and cash flows are cointegrated and the cointegration error is the accruals. I finally show that earnings is the error correction term in this cointegration relation, hence predictable. My results which are robust to various financial statement frequencies, earnings measures, universes, and periods may help to answer some of the questions which were raised regarding to the contemporaneous relationship between aggregate earnings surprises and stock returns in the recent literature.

Download or read book Aggregate Earnings Time series Properties and Forecasting Models written by Koren M. Jo and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study I examine the time series properties of quarterly aggregate earnings and aggregate analyst earnings forecasts. Using quarterly data from January 1988 to December 2012, I show that both quarterly aggregate earnings and analyst earnings forecasts follow a random walk process in contrast with the corresponding firm level's actual and forecasted earnings, which both follow a seasonal random walk process. The fact that aggregate earnings follows a random walk process suggests that researchers using aggregate earnings need to account for the serial correlation in aggregate earnings in their models. Moreover, the level of aggregate earnings and aggregate analyst forecasts are co-integrated even though aggregate analyst forecasts are biased. I further show that prior forecast errors are correlated with growth in aggregate GAAP earnings but not aggregate Street earnings. The exclusion of special items makes Street earnings smoother and easier to predict, thus making forecasts of Street earnings more efficient. Finally, random-walk-based forecasts outperform analyst forecasts in terms of accuracy when GAAP earnings are forecasted, but not when Street earnings are forecasted.

Download or read book Does Earnings Guidance Affect Market Returns The Nature and Information Content of Aggregate Earnings Guidance written by Carol Anilowski Cain and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We investigate whether earnings guidance affects aggregate stock returns through its effects on expectations about overall earnings performance and/or aggregate expected returns. We find that aggregate guidance, especially relative levels of quarterly downward guidance, is associated with analyst- and time-series-based measures of aggregate earnings news. We find more modest evidence that guidance, again, largely downward guidance, is associated with market returns - market returns appear to respond to guidance toward the end of each calendar quarter, when most earnings preannouncements are released, and there is some evidence that firm-level guidance affects market returns in short windows around its release.

Download or read book Aggregate Earnings Forecasts and Revisions written by Hamish Campbell Macalister and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I investigate the information in aggregated US equity analysts' earnings forecasts. Despite a voluminous body of research evaluating the information in, and characteristics of, equity analysts' forecasts, relatively little is known regarding aggregated forecasts. However, Kothari, Lewellen and Warner (2006) demonstrate how estimated relationships between, for example, earnings and returns may differ markedly at the aggregate level compared with the individual stock level. I generate time series of aggregated forecast earnings, aggregated forecast revisions and aggregated realized earnings for the period extending from the first quarter of 1979 through to the last quarter of 2009. These variables are employed in three examinations of aggregated earnings expectations. Firstly, prior research indicates significant information in analysts' forecasts for future realized earnings, and strong positive correlation between realized earnings and indicators of macroeconomic activity. I therefore hypothesize significant information in aggregated analysts' forecasts for future realized economic activity. Secondly, I investigate the informational efficiency of analysts' forecasts with respect to realized macroeconomic variables, and implications of earnings revision predictability for return predictability. Thirdly, I employ aggregated earnings revisions as proxies for market earnings surprise in tests of cash flow and discount rate effects in market returns. I find evidence of statistically significant information for future US industrial production growth in aggregated analysts' forecasts, the magnitude of which is a partial function of earnings smoothing by management, firm size and earnings cyclicality. I also find evidence of systematic underreaction by analysts to realized macroeconomic factors, resulting in revision predictability which in turn is able to explain significant systematic variation in future industry returns. In addition, my results suggest that the negative relationship between aggregated earnings surprise and contemporaneous returns identified by Kothari et al. (2006) is at least partially a product of the period they evaluate. In robustness tests employing both aggregated realized earnings and aggregated forecast revisions, I find evidence of positive (albeit insignificant) relationships between these proxies for earnings surprise and contemporaneous market returns. My results do not support the notion of a discount rate effect dominating a cash flow effect at the aggregate level.

Download or read book Aggregate Earnings and Asset Prices written by Ray Ball and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A principal-components analysis demonstrates that common earnings factors explain a substantial portion of firm-level earnings variation, implying earnings shocks have substantial systematic components and are not almost fully diversifiable as prior literature has concluded. Furthermore, the principal components of earnings and returns are highly correlated, implying aggregate earnings risks and return risks are related. In contrast to previous studies, the correlation we report between the systematic components of earnings and returns is stable over time. We also show that the earnings factors are priced, in the sense that the sensitivities of securities' returns to the earnings factors explain a significant portion of the cross-sectional variation in returns, even controlling for return risk. This suggests earnings performance is an underlying source of priced risk. Our evidence that the information sets of returns and earnings are jointly determined implies cash-flow risk and return risk are not fully separable, and raises the possibility that it is the common variation of earnings and returns that is priced.

Download or read book On the Expected Earnings Hypothesis Explanation of the Aggregate Returns Earnings Association Puzzle written by Warren Bailey and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We provide strong support for the underappreciated expected earnings hypothesis of negative correlation between aggregate stock returns and earnings (Sadka and Sadka (2009); Choi, Kalay, and Sadka (2016)). For the 1970 to 2000 period studied by Kothari, Lewellen, and Warner (2006), our powerful modeling strategy incorporating macroeconomic information reveals that aggregate returns are significantly negatively correlated with expected aggregate earnings changes but uncorrelated with unexpected aggregate earnings changes. However, this negative correlation changes after 2000, perhaps from heightened volatility or accounting changes. We also show that underlying macroeconomic information explains the power of aggregate earnings to predict future GDP growth.

Download or read book Earnings Aggregation and Valuation written by Keji Chen and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: Accounting valuation models have been widely studied by researchers and commonly used by practitioners. Almost all the accounting valuation models require earnings as one of the inputs (or the only input). However, one question has not been addressed: whether earnings of a longer interval or earnings of a shorter interval should be used in the valuation models. The fact that earnings can be aggregated over time and this intertemporal aggregated earnings contains fewer measurement errors is intrinsic to accounting. Although earnings aggregation is intrinsic to accounting, it has received little attention by researchers when using accounting valuation models to estimate variables of interest. Also, although there are few studies that examine the effect of earnings aggregation, these studies focus mainly on the contemporaneous explanatory power of earnings for returns. Therefore, the effect of earnings aggregation on inferring prices via accounting valuation models remains unclear, and simply aggregating earnings over a longer interval may potentially improve the estimates from the valuation models. Despite the fact that the results for the cross-sectional sample may not be encouraging, the results for the sub-samples support the expectation that earnings aggregation improves the ability of the valuation model to infer prices for some types of firms. For firms with negative earnings and for small firms, using aggregated earnings of a longer interval in the valuation model generally generates smaller errors in inferring prices than using annual earnings, and the differences between the errors can be significant. These results contribute to the understanding of the fundamental accounting attribute of earnings aggregation. More specifically, this study contributes to the valuation research insofar as the results show that it is beneficial to aggregate earnings over a longer interval when applying accounting valuation models for some specific types of firms.

Download or read book Dividend Behavior for the Aggregate Stock Market written by Terry A. Marsh and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Dividend Behavior for the Aggregate Stock Market In this paper, we develop a model of the dividend process for the aggregate stock market. Previous research has focused almost exclusively on dividend behavior at the micro level of the individual firm. Hence, to motivate the focus here on aggregate dividend behavior, we begin with a brief review of these earlier micro studies, this to be followed by a discussion which locates the place of our aggregate analysis within this body of research. In Sections 2-5, we derive and fit our econometric model of the dividend process. In Section 6, we compare the performance of the model with other models in the literature. Although long a staple of financial management textbooks, corporate dividend policy remains a topic on which the field has failed to arrive at even a local sense of closure. Fischer Black (1976) has aptly described this lack of closure as the "dividend puzzle." The pivotal point in this puzzle is the classical work of Miller and Modigliani (1961) which demonstrated the irrelevance of dividend policy for determining the firm's cost of capital. Miller and Modigliani showed that when investors can create any payout pattern they want by selling and purchasing shares, the expected return required to induce them to hold these shares will be invariant to the way in which firms "package" gross dividend payments and new issues of stock (and/or other zero net present value transactions). Since neither the firm's expected future net cash flows nor its discount rate is affected by the choice of dividend policy per se, its current market value cannot be changed by a change in that policy. Thus, dividend policy "does not matter." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Download or read book The Common Sense of Political Economy written by Philip H. Wicksteed and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2003-06-05 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.