IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/joares/v48y2010i4p859-884.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Earnings Trend and Performance Relative to Benchmarks: How Consistency Influences Their Joint Use

Author

Listed:
  • LISA KOONCE
  • MARLYS GASCHO LIPE

Abstract

Archival research shows that the market reacts to earnings trend as well as to earnings performance relative to analysts' forecasts (i.e., benchmark performance). We conduct four experiments to investigate how and why investors react to these two measures when both are available over multiple time periods. Our results show that investors rely on an earnings measure only when it is consistent over time. When both measures are consistent over time, investors use them in an additive fashion, suggesting that they view them as providing different information about the firm. Further tests show that investors believe that earnings trend and benchmark performance both provide information about a firm's future prospects and management's credibility. Although judged future prospects fully explain the effect of earnings trend on investor judgments, neither judged future prospects nor management credibility completely explains the effect of benchmark performance. Our study has implications for firm managers and researchers.

Suggested Citation

  • Lisa Koonce & Marlys Gascho Lipe, 2010. "Earnings Trend and Performance Relative to Benchmarks: How Consistency Influences Their Joint Use," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(4), pages 859-884, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:joares:v:48:y:2010:i:4:p:859-884
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-679X.2010.00377.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-679X.2010.00377.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1475-679X.2010.00377.x?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. SANJEEV BHOJRAJ & PAUL HRIBAR & MARC PICCONI & JOHN McINNIS, 2009. "Making Sense of Cents: An Examination of Firms That Marginally Miss or Beat Analyst Forecasts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 2361-2388, October.
    2. Degeorge, Francois & Patel, Jayendu & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1999. "Earnings Management to Exceed Thresholds," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 72(1), pages 1-33, January.
    3. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Rajgopal, Shiva, 2005. "The economic implications of corporate financial reporting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1-3), pages 3-73, December.
    5. Bartov, Eli & Givoly, Dan & Hayn, Carla, 2002. "The rewards to meeting or beating earnings expectations," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 173-204, June.
    6. repec:cup:judgdm:v:2:y:2007:i::p:371-379 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. HUN†TONG TAN & ROBERT Libby & JAMES E. HUNTON, 2010. "Retracted: When Do Analysts Adjust for Biases in Management Guidance? Effects of Guidance Track Record and Analysts’ Incentives," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(1), pages 187-208, March.
    8. Kida, Thomas & Smith, James F., 1995. "The encoding and retrieval of numerical data for decision making in accounting contexts: Model development," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 20(7-8), pages 585-610.
    9. Hun†Tong Tan & Robert Libby & James E. Hunton, 2010. "When Do Analysts Adjust for Biases in Management Guidance? Effects of Guidance Track Record and Analysts’ Incentives," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(1), pages 5-5, March.
    10. Barth, ME & Elliott, JA & Finn, MW, 1999. "Market rewards associated with patterns of increasing earnings," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 387-413.
    11. Ron Kasznik & Maureen F. McNichols, 2002. "Does Meeting Earnings Expectations Matter? Evidence from Analyst Forecast Revisions and Share Prices," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(3), pages 727-759, June.
    12. Burgstahler, David & Dichev, Ilia, 1997. "Earnings management to avoid earnings decreases and losses," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 99-126, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yakup Ergincan, 2011. "Mobile Corporate Governance: A Model Proposal For Modern Corporate Governance And Investor Relations," Bogazici Journal, Review of Social, Economic and Administrative Studies, Bogazici University, Department of Economics, vol. 25(1), pages 171-200.
    2. Chen, Zhenhua & Loftus, Serena, 2019. "Multi-method evidence on investors’ reactions to managers’ self-inclusive language," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    3. Anna Agapova & Jagadison K. Aier & Zhanel DeVides, 2022. "Earnings patterns and managerial guidance," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 1173-1213, October.
    4. Kristina Rennekamp, 2012. "Processing Fluency and Investors’ Reactions to Disclosure Readability," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(5), pages 1319-1354, December.
    5. Hilary, Gilles & Hsu, Charles & Segal, Benjamin & Wang, Rencheng, 2016. "The bright side of managerial over-optimism," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 46-64.
    6. Su-Ping Liu & Juan Manuel García Lara, 2013. "Market Rewards to Patterns of Increasing Earnings: Do Cash Flow Patterns, Accruals Manipulation and Real Activities Manipulation Matter?," Working Papers 1303, Departament Empresa, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, revised May 2013.
    7. Martin, Rachel, 2019. "Examination and implications of experimental research on investor perceptions," Journal of Accounting Literature, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 145-169.
    8. Lisa M. Gaynor & Andrea S. Kelton, 2014. "The effects of analyst forecasts and earnings trends on perceptions of management forecast credibility," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 54(1), pages 189-210, March.
    9. Koon Boon Kee, 2011. "Why ‘Democracy’ anD ‘Drifter’ firms can have abnormal returns: the Joint importance of corporate Governance anD abnormal accruals in separatinG Winners from losers," Bogazici Journal, Review of Social, Economic and Administrative Studies, Bogazici University, Department of Economics, vol. 25(1), pages 3-55.
    10. Libby, Robert & Rennekamp, Kristina M. & Seybert, Nicholas, 2015. "Regulation and the interdependent roles of managers, auditors, and directors in earnings management and accounting choice," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 25-42.
    11. Asay, H. Scott & Libby, Robert & Rennekamp, Kristina M., 2018. "Do features that associate managers with a message magnify investors’ reactions to narrative disclosures?," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 68, pages 1-14.
    12. Cade, Nicole L., 2018. "Corporate social media: How two-way disclosure channels influence investors," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 68, pages 63-79.
    13. Chen, Wei & Tan, Hun-Tong & Wang, Elaine Ying, 2023. "The impact of repeated notifications and notification checking mode on investors' reactions to managers’ strategic positive title emphasis," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    14. Nicole L. Cade & Lisa Koonce & Kim I. Mendoza, 2020. "Using video to disclose forward-looking information: the effect of nonverbal cues on investors’ judgments," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 1444-1474, December.
    15. Lim, Yingzhee & Azmi, Anna & Devi, S. Susela & Mahzan, Nurmazilah, 2017. "Implementation Guidance for Standards and Revenue Trend in Aggressive Reporting," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 52(4), pages 342-353.
    16. Chen, Wei & Han, Jun & Tan, Hun-Tong, 2016. "Investor reactions to management earnings guidance attributions: The effects of news valence, attribution locus, and outcome controllability," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 83-95.

    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. Neururer, Thaddeus, 2022. "Meet-or-beat streak heterogeneity and equity prices," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 455-470.
    2. Chin, Chen-Lung & Chen, Mei-Hui & Yu, Po-Hsiang, 2018. "Does meeting analysts’ forecasts matter in the private loan market?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 321-340.
    3. Kross, William J. & Ro, Byung T. & Suk, Inho, 2011. "Consistency in meeting or beating earnings expectations and management earnings forecasts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1-2), pages 37-57, February.
    4. Xia, Jingjing, 2023. "Redrawing the line: Narrowly beating analyst forecasts and journalists’ co-coverage choices in earnings-related news articles," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3).
    5. Su-Ping Liu & Juan Manuel García Lara, 2013. "Market Rewards to Patterns of Increasing Earnings: Do Cash Flow Patterns, Accruals Manipulation and Real Activities Manipulation Matter?," Working Papers 1303, Departament Empresa, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, revised May 2013.
    6. Bird, Andrew & Karolyi, Stephen A. & Ruchti, Thomas G., 2019. "Understanding the “numbers game”," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2).
    7. Habib, Ahsan & Hossain, Mahmud, 2008. "Do managers manage earnings to ‘just meet or beat’ analyst forecasts?," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 79-91.
    8. Edmonds, Christopher T. & Edmonds, Jennifer E. & Fu, Richard & Jenkins, David S., 2018. "Price momentum and the premium for meeting or beating analysts' forecasts of earnings," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 34-47.
    9. Kross, William J. & Ro, Byung T. & Suk, Inho, 2011. "Consistency in meeting or beating earnings expectations and management earnings forecasts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 37-57.
    10. Beardsley, Erik L. & Robinson, John R. & Wong, Paul A., 2021. "What's my target? Individual analyst forecasts and last-chance earnings management," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1).
    11. Vincent Chen & Samuel Tiras, 2015. "‘Other information’ as an explanatory factor for the opposite market reactions to earnings surprises," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 45(4), pages 757-784, November.
    12. Sanghyuk Byun & Kristin C. Roland, 2022. "Quarterly earnings thresholds: Making the case for prior quarter earnings," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(5-6), pages 690-716, May.
    13. Chang, Chu-Hsuan & Lin, Hsiou-Wei William, 2018. "Does there prevail momentum in earnings management for seasoned equity offering firms?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 111-129.
    14. Dechow, Patricia & Ge, Weili & Schrand, Catherine, 2010. "Understanding earnings quality: A review of the proxies, their determinants and their consequences," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 344-401, December.
    15. Barua, Abhijit & Kim, Jung Hoon & Yi, Sheng, 2019. "Hierarchy of earnings thresholds based on discretionary accruals," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 29-48.
    16. Luis Gomez-Mejia & Cristina Cruz & Claudia Imperatore, 2014. "Financial Reporting and the Protection of Socioemotional Wealth in Family-Controlled Firms," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(3), pages 387-402, September.
    17. Halaoua, Sameh & Hamdi, Badreddine & Mejri, Tarek, 2017. "Earnings management to exceed thresholds in continental and Anglo-Saxon accounting models: The British and French cases," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 513-529.
    18. Abhijit Barua & Joseph Legoria & Jacquelyn Sue Moffitt, 2006. "Accruals Management to Achieve Earnings Benchmarks: A Comparison of Pre‐managed Profit and Loss Firms," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(5‐6), pages 653-670, June.
    19. Hribar, Paul & Jenkins, Nicole Thorne & Johnson, W. Bruce, 2006. "Stock repurchases as an earnings management device," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1-2), pages 3-27, April.
    20. Sherry Fang Li, 2019. "Capital Market Consequences Of Expectations Management In The Postregulation Fair Disclosure Period," Accounting & Taxation, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 11(1), pages 11-20.

    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:joares:v:48:y:2010:i:4:p:859-884. 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=0021-8456 .

    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.