IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jbfnac/v48y2021i7-8p1434-1467.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Credit rating, post‐earnings‐announcement drift, and arbitrage from transient institutions

Author

Listed:
  • Guanming He

Abstract

This study first establishes a robust link between credit rating and post‐earnings‐announcement drift (PEAD). I find strong evidence that PEAD is more salient for firms with low credit ratings. This finding is consistent with the notion that investors are prone to underreact to earnings news from low credit rating firms that are characterized by high uncertainty of asset fundamentals. The association between credit rating and PEAD is not driven by traditional information uncertainty proxies such as earnings volatility, cash flow volatility, accruals quality, firm age, idiosyncratic volatility, and analyst forecast dispersion. I further investigate whether transient institutions exploit the differential of PEAD among different rated firms in their arbitrage trades. The results reveal that transient institutions tend to focus their arbitrage on low credit rating firms. However, the existence and concentration of PEAD in low credit rating firms suggest that transient institutions fail to arbitrage away PEAD among low‐rated firms and that the arbitrage strategy is riskier than expected by the transient institutions. This in turn implies that estimation risk associated with pricing the earnings news of low‐rated firms plays a substantive role in forming the strong PEAD of these firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Guanming He, 2021. "Credit rating, post‐earnings‐announcement drift, and arbitrage from transient institutions," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(7-8), pages 1434-1467, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:jbfnac:v:48:y:2021:i:7-8:p:1434-1467
    DOI: 10.1111/jbfa.12520
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jbfa.12520
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jbfa.12520?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeffrey Wurgler & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2002. "Does Arbitrage Flatten Demand Curves for Stocks?," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(4), pages 583-608, October.
    2. Francis, Jennifer & LaFond, Ryan & Olsson, Per & Schipper, Katherine, 2005. "The market pricing of accruals quality," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 295-327, June.
    3. Mingyi Hung & Xi Li & Shiheng Wang, 2015. "Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift in Global Markets: Evidence from an Information Shock," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(4), pages 1242-1283.
    4. Harrison Hong & Terence Lim & Jeremy C. Stein, 2000. "Bad News Travels Slowly: Size, Analyst Coverage, and the Profitability of Momentum Strategies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(1), pages 265-295, February.
    5. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2009. "Market Liquidity and Funding Liquidity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(6), pages 2201-2238, June.
    6. John M. Griffin & Jeffrey H. Harris & Selim Topaloglu, 2003. "The Dynamics of Institutional and Individual Trading," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2285-2320, December.
    7. X. Frank Zhang, 2006. "Information Uncertainty and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 105-137, February.
    8. Guanming He, 2018. "Credit Ratings and Managerial Voluntary Disclosures," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 53(2), pages 337-378, May.
    9. Stanimir Markov & Ane Tamayo, 2006. "Predictability in Financial Analyst Forecast Errors: Learning or Irrationality?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 725-761, September.
    10. Brian J. Bushee, 2001. "Do Institutional Investors Prefer Near†Term Earnings over Long†Run Value?," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(2), pages 207-246, June.
    11. R. David Mclean & Jeffrey Pontiff, 2016. "Does Academic Research Destroy Stock Return Predictability?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(1), pages 5-32, February.
    12. Paul A. Gompers & Andrew Metrick, 2001. "Institutional Investors and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 229-259.
    13. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
    14. Barberis, Nicholas & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1998. "A model of investor sentiment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 307-343, September.
    15. Bernard, Victor L. & Thomas, Jacob K., 1990. "Evidence that stock prices do not fully reflect the implications of current earnings for future earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 305-340, December.
    16. Xuemin (Sterling) Yan & Zhe Zhang, 2009. "Institutional Investors and Equity Returns: Are Short-term Institutions Better Informed?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(2), pages 893-924, February.
    17. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    18. Stephen Morris, 1996. "Speculative Investor Behavior and Learning," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(4), pages 1111-1133.
    19. Campbell, John Y. & Ramadorai, Tarun & Schwartz, Allie, 2009. "Caught on tape: Institutional trading, stock returns, and earnings announcements," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 66-91, April.
    20. Gromb, Denis & Vayanos, Dimitri, 2002. "Equilibrium and welfare in markets with financially constrained arbitrageurs," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 361-407.
    21. Ball, Ray & Bartov, Eli, 1996. "How naive is the stock market's use of earnings information?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 319-337, June.
    22. Bernard, Vl & Thomas, Jk, 1989. "Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift - Delayed Price Response Or Risk Premium," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27, pages 1-36.
    23. Bin Ke & Kathy Petroni, 2004. "How Informed Are Actively Trading Institutional Investors? Evidence from Their Trading Behavior before a Break in a String of Consecutive Earnings Increases," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(5), pages 895-927, December.
    24. Ball, R & Brown, P, 1968. "Empirical Evaluation Of Accounting Income Numbers," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(2), pages 159-178.
    25. Bin Ke & Kathy R. Petroni & Yong Yu, 2008. "The Effect of Regulation FD on Transient Institutional Investors' Trading Behavior," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(4), pages 853-883, September.
    26. Jeffrey Pontiff, 1996. "Costly Arbitrage: Evidence from Closed-End Funds," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(4), pages 1135-1151.
    27. Altman, Edward I. & Rijken, Herbert A., 2004. "How rating agencies achieve rating stability," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(11), pages 2679-2714, November.
    28. John H. Cochrane, 1999. "Portfolio advice of a multifactor world," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 23(Q III), pages 59-78.
    29. Mark Mitchell & Todd Pulvino & Erik Stafford, 2002. "Limited Arbitrage in Equity Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(2), pages 551-584, April.
    30. Jeffrey T. Doyle & Russell J. Lundholm & Mark T. Soliman, 2006. "The Extreme Future Stock Returns Following I/B/E/S Earnings Surprises," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(5), pages 849-887, December.
    31. Patricia M. Dechow & Scott A. Richardson & Richard G. Sloan, 2008. "The Persistence and Pricing of the Cash Component of Earnings," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3), pages 537-566, June.
    32. Avramov, Doron & Chordia, Tarun & Jostova, Gergana & Philipov, Alexander, 2009. "Dispersion in analysts' earnings forecasts and credit rating," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 83-101, January.
    33. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    34. Ke, Bin & Ramalingegowda, Santhosh, 2005. "Do institutional investors exploit the post-earnings announcement drift?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 25-53, February.
    35. Stefano Dellavigna & Joshua M. Pollet, 2009. "Investor Inattention and Friday Earnings Announcements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 709-749, April.
    36. David Hirshleifer & Sonya S. Lim & Siew Hong Teoh, 2011. "Limited Investor Attention and Stock Market Misreactions to Accounting Information," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(1), pages 35-73.
    37. Kevin Aretz & Peter F. Pope, 2013. "Common Factors in Default Risk Across Countries and Industries," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 19(1), pages 108-152, January.
    38. Chordia, Tarun & Shivakumar, Lakshmanan, 2006. "Earnings and price momentum," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 627-656, June.
    39. Joshua Livnat & Richard R. Mendenhall, 2006. "Comparing the Post–Earnings Announcement Drift for Surprises Calculated from Analyst and Time Series Forecasts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 177-205, March.
    40. Narasimhan Jegadeesh & Sheridan Titman, 2001. "Profitability of Momentum Strategies: An Evaluation of Alternative Explanations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 699-720, April.
    41. Guanming He & Lu Bai & Helen Mengbing Ren, 2019. "Analyst coverage and future stock price crash risk," Journal of Applied Accounting Research, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 20(1), pages 63-77, April.
    42. Battalio, Robert H. & Mendenhall, Richard R., 2005. "Earnings expectations, investor trade size, and anomalous returns around earnings announcements," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 289-319, August.
    43. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:3:p:1131-1147 is not listed on IDEAS
    44. Doron Avramov & Tarun Chordia & Gergana Jostova & Alexander Philipov, 2007. "Momentum and Credit Rating," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(5), pages 2503-2520, October.
    45. Chan, Louis K C & Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Lakonishok, Josef, 1996. "Momentum Strategies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(5), pages 1681-1713, December.
    46. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Titman, Sheridan, 1993. "Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 65-91, March.
    47. Xi Li & Mingyi Hung & Shiheng Wang, 2015. "Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift in Global Markets: Evidence from an Information Shock," HKUST IEMS Working Paper Series 2015-17, HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies, revised Mar 2015.
    48. Collins, Daniel W. & Hribar, Paul, 2000. "Earnings-based and accrual-based market anomalies: one effect or two?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 101-123, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jacobs, Heiko, 2015. "What explains the dynamics of 100 anomalies?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 65-85.
    2. Fink, Josef, 2021. "A review of the Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).
    3. repec:grz:wpsses:2020-04 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Truong, Cameron, 2010. "Post earnings announcement drift and the roles of drift-enhanced factors in New Zealand," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 139-157, April.
    5. Jiang, George J. & Zhu, Kevin X., 2017. "Information Shocks and Short-Term Market Underreaction," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 43-64.
    6. Martineau, Charles, 2021. "Rest in Peace Post-Earnings Announcement Drift," SocArXiv z7k3p, Center for Open Science.
    7. Daniel, Kent & Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2002. "Investor psychology in capital markets: evidence and policy implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 139-209, January.
    8. Blankespoor, Elizabeth & deHaan, Ed & Marinovic, Iván, 2020. "Disclosure processing costs, investors’ information choice, and equity market outcomes: A review," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2).
    9. Claire Y. C. Liang & Rengong Zhang, 2020. "Post-earnings announcement drift and parameter uncertainty: evidence from industry and market news," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 695-738, August.
    10. Richardson, Scott & Tuna, Irem & Wysocki, Peter, 2010. "Accounting anomalies and fundamental analysis: A review of recent research advances," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 410-454, December.
    11. Azevedo, Vitor, 2023. "Analysts’ underreaction and momentum strategies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    12. Lin, Chaonan & Ko, Kuan-Cheng & Chen, Yu-Lin & Chu, Hsiang-Hui, 2016. "Information discreteness, price limits and earnings momentum," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 1-22.
    13. DeLisle, R. Jared & Ferguson, Michael F. & Kassa, Haimanot & Zaynutdinova, Gulnara R., 2021. "Hazard stocks and expected returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    14. Deng, Yongheng & Liu, Xin & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2018. "One fundamental and two taxes: When does a Tobin tax reduce financial price volatility?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(3), pages 663-692.
    15. Jordan Moore, 2020. "Glamour among value: P/E ratios and value investor attention," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 49(3), pages 673-706, September.
    16. Jennifer Francis & Ryan Lafond & Per Olsson & Katherine Schipper, 2007. "Information Uncertainty and Post‐Earnings‐Announcement‐Drift," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(3‐4), pages 403-433, April.
    17. Stephen A. Gorman & Frank J. Fabozzi, 2021. "The ABC’s of the alternative risk premium: academic roots," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(6), pages 405-436, October.
    18. Chudek, Mark & Truong, Cameron & Veeraraghavan, Madhu, 2011. "Is trading on earnings surprises a profitable strategy? Canadian evidence," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 832-850.
    19. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, February.
    20. Jonathan A. Milian, 2015. "Unsophisticated Arbitrageurs and Market Efficiency: Overreacting to a History of Underreaction?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(1), pages 175-220, March.
    21. Stefan Nagel, 2013. "Empirical Cross-Sectional Asset Pricing," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 167-199, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jbfnac:v:48:y:2021:i:7-8:p:1434-1467. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0306-686X .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.