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Do Investors See through Mistakes in Reported Earnings?

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  • Bardos, Katsiaryna Salavei
  • Golec, Joseph
  • Harding, John P.

Abstract

This study investigates whether investors see through materially misstated earnings, and whether they anticipate earnings restatements. For firms that restate at least one annual report, we find that investors are misled by mistakes in reported earnings at the time of initial earnings announcements. Investors react positively to the component of the favorable earnings surprise that will subsequently be restated, and they attach the same valuation to it as to the true earnings surprise. We also find that investors anticipate the subsequent downward restatements and start marking stock prices down several months before a restatement announcement, so that the full impact of a restatement is about three times as large as the restatement announcement effect. Indeed, we show that investors punish restating firms because the stock price gains that shareholders enjoy when firms initially announce overstated earnings are more than reversed by the time of the restatement announcement.

Suggested Citation

  • Bardos, Katsiaryna Salavei & Golec, Joseph & Harding, John P., 2011. "Do Investors See through Mistakes in Reported Earnings?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(6), pages 1917-1946, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:jfinqa:v:46:y:2012:i:06:p:1917-1946_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Bradley, Daniel & Cline, Brandon N. & Lian, Qin, 2014. "Class action lawsuits and executive stock option exercise," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 157-172.
    2. Armstrong, Christopher S. & Larcker, David F. & Ormazabal, Gaizka & Taylor, Daniel J., 2012. "The Relation between Equity Incentives and Misreporting: The Role of Risk-Taking Incentives," Research Papers 2120, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    3. Zulfikar Ikhsan Pane & Roy Sembel & Yvonne Agustine, 2021. "Street earnings as a mediator of the effect of intellectual capital disclosure, customer value, and research development activities on firm value," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 25(1), pages 242-259, November.
    4. Chepurko, Iuliia & Dayanandan, Ajit & Donker, Han & Nofsinger, John, 2018. "Are socially responsible firms less likely to restate earnings?," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 97-109.
    5. Armstrong, Christopher S. & Larcker, David F. & Ormazabal, Gaizka & Taylor, Daniel J., 2013. "The relation between equity incentives and misreporting: The role of risk-taking incentives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 327-350.
    6. Marie Herly & Nikolaj Niebuhr Lambertsen, 2023. "Restatement costs and reporting bias," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1-2), pages 91-117, January.
    7. Hyejeong Shin & Su-In Kim, 2018. "The Effect of Corporate Governance on Earnings Quality and Market Reaction to Low Quality Earnings: Korean Evidence," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-17, December.
    8. Katsiaryna Salavei Bardos & Brandon N. Cline & Gregory Koutmos, 2020. "Risk dynamics around restatement announcements," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 1279-1313, May.
    9. Xin Cheng & Dan Palmon & Yinan Yang & Cheng Yin, 2023. "Strategic Earnings Announcement Timing and Fraud Detection," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 851-874, January.
    10. Cao, Viet Nga & Pham, Anh Viet, 2021. "Behavioral spillover between firms with shared auditors: The monitoring role of capital market investors," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    11. Lian Fen Lee & Alvis K. Lo, 2016. "Do Opinions on Financial Misstatement Firms Affect Analysts’ Reputation with Investors? Evidence from Reputational Spillovers," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 1111-1148, September.
    12. Shantaram Hegde & Tingyu Zhou, 2019. "Predicting Accounting Misconduct: The Role of Firm-Level Investor Optimism," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 535-562, December.

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