IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jaecon/v71y2021i2s0165410120300690.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Analysts’ estimates of the cost of equity capital

Author

Listed:
  • Balakrishnan, Karthik
  • Shivakumar, Lakshmanan
  • Taori, Peeyush

Abstract

We explore a large sample of analysts' estimates of the cost of equity capital (CoE) to evaluate their usefulness as expected return proxies (ERP). We find that the CoE estimates are significantly related to a firm's beta, size, book-to-market ratio, leverage, and idiosyncratic volatility but not other risk proxies. Even after controlling for the popular return predictors, the CoE estimates incrementally predict future stock returns. This predictive ability is better explained as the CoE estimates containing ERP information rather than reflecting stock mispricing. When evaluated against traditional ERPs, including the implied costs of capital, the CoE estimates are found to be the least noisy. Finally, we document CoE responses around earnings announcements, demonstrating their usefulness to study discount-rate reactions of market participants. We conclude that analysts' CoE estimates are meaningful ERPs that can be fruitfully employed in a variety of asset pricing contexts.

Suggested Citation

  • Balakrishnan, Karthik & Shivakumar, Lakshmanan & Taori, Peeyush, 2021. "Analysts’ estimates of the cost of equity capital," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:71:y:2021:i:2:s0165410120300690
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2020.101367
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165410120300690
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jacceco.2020.101367?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    2. Lakonishok, Josef & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1994. "Contrarian Investment, Extrapolation, and Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1541-1578, December.
    3. Joos, Peter & Piotroski, Joseph D. & Srinivasan, Suraj, 2016. "Can analysts assess fundamental risk and valuation uncertainty? An empirical analysis of scenario-based value estimates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(3), pages 645-663.
    4. Novy-Marx, Robert, 2013. "The other side of value: The gross profitability premium," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-28.
    5. Daphne Lui & Stanimir Markov & Ane Tamayo, 2012. "Equity Analysts and the Market's Assessment of Risk," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(5), pages 1287-1317, December.
    6. Daphne Lui & Stanimir Markov & Ane Tamayo, 2007. "What Makes a Stock Risky? Evidence from Sell‐Side Analysts' Risk Ratings," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 629-665, June.
    7. 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.
    8. Campbell, John Y, 1991. "A Variance Decomposition for Stock Returns," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(405), pages 157-179, March.
    9. Balakrishnan, Karthik & Bartov, Eli & Faurel, Lucile, 2010. "Post loss/profit announcement drift," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 20-41, May.
    10. 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.
    11. Ang, Andrew & Hodrick, Robert J. & Xing, Yuhang & Zhang, Xiaoyan, 2009. "High idiosyncratic volatility and low returns: International and further U.S. evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 1-23, January.
    12. Edwin J. Elton, 1999. "Presidential Address: Expected Return, Realized Return, and Asset Pricing Tests," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1199-1220, August.
    13. Campbell, John Y, 1996. "Understanding Risk and Return," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(2), pages 298-345, April.
    14. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    15. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan, 1990. "Evidence of Predictable Behavior of Security Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(3), pages 881-898, July.
    16. Pastor, Lubos & Stambaugh, Robert F., 2003. "Liquidity Risk and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 642-685, June.
    17. Rountree, Brian & Weston, James P. & Allayannis, George, 2008. "Do investors value smooth performance?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(3), pages 237-251, December.
    18. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:2:p:507-28 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Lee, Charles M. C. & So, Eric C. & Wang, Charles C. Y., 2017. "Evaluating Firm-Level Expected-Return Proxies," Research Papers 3188, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    20. Coval, Joshua & Stafford, Erik, 2007. "Asset fire sales (and purchases) in equity markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 479-512, November.
    21. Banz, Rolf W., 1981. "The relationship between return and market value of common stocks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 3-18, March.
    22. William R. Gebhardt & Charles M. C. Lee & Bhaskaran Swaminathan, 2001. "Toward an Implied Cost of Capital," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 135-176, June.
    23. Jung, Boochun & Shane, Philip B. & Sunny Yang, Yanhua, 2012. "Do financial analysts' long-term growth forecasts matter? Evidence from stock recommendations and career outcomes," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 55-76.
    24. Christine A. Botosan & Marlene A. Plumlee & HE Wen, 2011. "The Relation between Expected Returns, Realized Returns, and Firm Risk Characteristics," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(4), pages 1085-1122, December.
    25. Michael J. Brennan & Ashley W. Wang, 2010. "The Mispricing Return Premium," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(9), pages 3437-3468.
    26. S.P. Kothari & Eric So & Rodrigo Verdi, 2016. "Analysts’ Forecasts and Asset Pricing: A Survey," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 197-219, October.
    27. Amihud, Yakov, 2002. "Illiquidity and stock returns: cross-section and time-series effects," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 31-56, January.
    28. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2015. "A five-factor asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 1-22.
    29. Mozaffar Khan & Leonid Kogan & George Serafeim, 2012. "Mutual Fund Trading Pressure: Firm-Level Stock Price Impact and Timing of SEOs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1371-1395, August.
    30. Frank, Murray Z. & Shen, Tao, 2016. "Investment and the weighted average cost of capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 300-315.
    31. Andrew Ang & Robert J. Hodrick & Yuhang Xing & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2006. "The Cross‐Section of Volatility and Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 259-299, February.
    32. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    33. Titman, Sheridan & Wei, K. C. John & Xie, Feixue, 2004. "Capital Investments and Stock Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(4), pages 677-700, December.
    34. Lee, Charles M.C. & So, Eric C., 2017. "Uncovering expected returns: Information in analyst coverage proxies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 331-348.
    35. Dimson, Elroy, 1979. "Risk measurement when shares are subject to infrequent trading," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 197-226, June.
    36. Peter Hecht & Tuomo Vuolteenaho, 2006. "Explaining Returns with Cash-Flow Proxies," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(1), pages 159-194.
    37. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    38. Philip Bond & Alex Edmans & Itay Goldstein, 2012. "The Real Effects of Financial Markets," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 339-360, October.
    39. Mukhlynina, Lilia & Nyborg, Kjell G., 2020. "The Choice of Valuation Techniques in Practice: Education Versus Profession," Critical Finance Review, now publishers, vol. 9(1-2), pages 201-265, June.
    40. Alex Edmans & Itay Goldstein & Wei Jiang, 2012. "The Real Effects of Financial Markets: The Impact of Prices on Takeovers," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(3), pages 933-971, June.
    41. Long Chen & Xinlei Zhao, 2009. "Return Decomposition," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 5213-5249, December.
    42. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2006. "Profitability, investment and average returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 491-518, December.
    43. Jeremiah Green & John R. M. Hand & X. Frank Zhang, 2016. "Errors and questionable judgments in analysts’ DCF models," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 596-632, June.
    44. Peter D. Easton & Steven J. Monahan, 2016. "Review of Recent Research on Improving Earnings Forecasts and Evaluating Accounting-based Estimates of the Expected Rate of Return on Equity Capital," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 52(1), pages 35-58, March.
    45. 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.
    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. Jang, Soomi & Choi, Heeick & Kim, Hyungtae, 2024. "Managerial ability and cost of equity capital," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    2. Hasan, Mostafa Monzur & Cheung, Adrian (Wai Kong) & Marwick, Trevor, 2022. "Corporate sexual orientation equality policies and the cost of equity capital," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C).
    3. Zhang, Yin & Peng, Hongxing & Liu, Tingli & Xie, Kehuang, 2024. "Corporate innovation and analysts’ estimates of the cost of equity: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PA), pages 83-101.
    4. Yu, Huaibing, 2024. "Why isn't composite equity issuance favored by the stock market? A risk-based explanation for the anomaly," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    5. Cepni, Oguzhan & Şensoy, Ahmet & Yılmaz, Muhammed Hasan, 2024. "Climate change exposure and cost of equity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    6. Dev R. Mishra, 2023. "Firm‐level political risk and implied cost of equity capital," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 23(3), pages 615-644, September.
    7. Alexander-Haw, Abigail & Breitschopf, Barbara, 2024. "How to design an auction: The impact of auction implementation elements on the financing costs of renewable electricity projects," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    8. Toušek, Zdeněk & Hinke, Jana & Malinská, Barbora & Prokop, Martin, 2022. "Shareholder Value Generation within the Agro-Food Financial Supply Chain," AGRIS on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Faculty of Economics and Management, vol. 14(3), September.

    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. Kewei Hou & Chen Xue & Lu Zhang, 2017. "Replicating Anomalies," NBER Working Papers 23394, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, June.
    3. Amit Goyal, 2012. "Empirical cross-sectional asset pricing: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 26(1), pages 3-38, March.
    4. Cederburg, Scott & O’Doherty, Michael S. & Wang, Feifei & Yan, Xuemin (Sterling), 2020. "On the performance of volatility-managed portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 95-117.
    5. Bartram, Söhnke M. & Grinblatt, Mark, 2018. "Agnostic fundamental analysis works," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(1), pages 125-147.
    6. Kewei Hou & Haitao Mo & Chen Xue & Lu Zhang, 2019. "Which Factors?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 23(1), pages 1-35.
    7. Doron Avramov & Guy Kaplanski & Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 2022. "Postfundamentals Price Drift in Capital Markets: A Regression Regularization Perspective," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(10), pages 7658-7681, October.
    8. Hou, Kewei & van Dijk, Mathijs A. & Zhang, Yinglei, 2012. "The implied cost of capital: A new approach," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 504-526.
    9. Wang, Feifei & Yan, Xuemin Sterling, 2021. "Downside risk and the performance of volatility-managed portfolios," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    10. Stefan Nagel, 2013. "Empirical Cross-Sectional Asset Pricing," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 167-199, November.
    11. Lou, Dong & Polk, Christopher & Skouras, Spyros, 2019. "A tug of war: Overnight versus intraday expected returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 192-213.
    12. Diaz-Ruiz, Polux & Herrerias, Renata & Vasquez, Aurelio, 2020. "Anomalies in emerging markets: The case of Mexico," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    13. Andrew Y. Chen & Tom Zimmermann, 2022. "Open Source Cross-Sectional Asset Pricing," Critical Finance Review, now publishers, vol. 11(2), pages 207-264, May.
    14. Malagon, Juliana & Moreno, David & Rodríguez, Rosa, 2015. "The idiosyncratic volatility anomaly: Corporate investment or investor mispricing?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 224-238.
    15. Bui, Dien Giau & Kong, De-Rong & Lin, Chih-Yung & Lin, Tse-Chun, 2023. "Momentum in machine learning: Evidence from the Taiwan stock market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    16. Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 2010. "The Cross†Section of Expected Stock Returns: What Have We Learnt from the Past Twenty†Five Years of Research?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 16(1), pages 27-42, January.
    17. Jacobs, Heiko, 2015. "What explains the dynamics of 100 anomalies?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 65-85.
    18. Kaserer Christoph & Hanauer Matthias X., 2017. "25 Jahre Fama-French-Modell: Erklärungsgehalt, Anomalien und praktische Implikationen," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 18(2), pages 98-116, June.
    19. Berggrun, Luis & Cardona, Emilio & Lizarzaburu, Edmundo, 2024. "Evaluating asset pricing anomalies: Evidence from Latin America," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(PB).
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Analysts; Cost of equity; Expected stock returns; Implied cost of equity capital;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • G29 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Other
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    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:eee:jaecon:v:71:y:2021:i:2:s0165410120300690. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jae .

    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.