IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jocaae/v19y2023i3s1815566923000309.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Uncertain tone, asset volatility and credit default swap spreads

Author

Listed:
  • Doshi, Hitesh
  • Patel, Saurin
  • Ramani, Srikanth
  • Sooy, Matthew

Abstract

We examine the relationship between uncertain linguistic tone and credit default swap (CDS) spreads. Using an event study approach, we first show that uncertain linguistic tone in 10-Q/K filings is positively associated with CDS spread changes incremental to positive and negative tone and incremental to the response implied by equity market reactions to the same information. We further demonstrate that the relationship of uncertain tone to CDS spreads manifests largely through its impact on asset volatility. We show that this effect is driven by firms with high leverage and is stronger among firms with shorter relative to longer maturities. Our findings contribute to growing research into credit market reactions to non-quantitative information by demonstrating a positive relationship between credit market responses and uncertainty disclosure language, and that this relationship is mediated by investors’ implied asset volatility estimates.

Suggested Citation

  • Doshi, Hitesh & Patel, Saurin & Ramani, Srikanth & Sooy, Matthew, 2023. "Uncertain tone, asset volatility and credit default swap spreads," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jocaae:v:19:y:2023:i:3:s1815566923000309
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100380
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1815566923000309
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100380?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. Boochun Jung & Naomi Soderstrom & Yanhua Sunny Yang, 2013. "Earnings Smoothing Activities of Firms to Manage Credit Ratings," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(2), pages 645-676, June.
    2. Lo, Kin & Ramos, Felipe & Rogo, Rafael, 2017. "Earnings management and annual report readability," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 1-25.
    3. Demerjian, Peter R. & Owens, Edward L., 2016. "Measuring the probability of financial covenant violation in private debt contracts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 433-447.
    4. Tim Loughran & Bill Mcdonald, 2014. "Measuring Readability in Financial Disclosures," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(4), pages 1643-1671, August.
    5. Loughran, Tim & McDonald, Bill, 2013. "IPO first-day returns, offer price revisions, volatility, and form S-1 language," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 307-326.
    6. Ericsson, Jan & Jacobs, Kris & Oviedo, Rodolfo, 2009. "The Determinants of Credit Default Swap Premia," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(1), pages 109-132, February.
    7. Duffie, Darrell & Lando, David, 2001. "Term Structures of Credit Spreads with Incomplete Accounting Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(3), pages 633-664, May.
    8. Dan Givoly & Carla Hayn & Sharon Katz, 2017. "The changing relevance of accounting information to debt holders over time," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 64-108, March.
    9. Doblas-Madrid, Antonio & Minetti, Raoul, 2013. "Sharing information in the credit market: Contract-level evidence from U.S. firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(1), pages 198-223.
    10. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "Financial Ratios, Discriminant Analysis And The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(4), pages 589-609, September.
    11. 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.
    12. Paul A. Griffin & Steven Cahan, 2014. "The market for credit default swaps: new insights into investors' use of accounting information?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 54(3), pages 847-883, September.
    13. Angela K. Davis & Jeremy M. Piger & Lisa M. Sedor, 2012. "Beyond the Numbers: Measuring the Information Content of Earnings Press Release Language," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(3), pages 845-868, September.
    14. John Y. Campbell & Glen B. Taksler, 2003. "Equity Volatility and Corporate Bond Yields," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2321-2350, December.
    15. Peter R. Demerjian, 2017. "Uncertainty and debt covenants," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 1156-1197, September.
    16. Tang, Tony T., 2009. "Information asymmetry and firms' credit market access: Evidence from Moody's credit rating format refinement," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 325-351, August.
    17. Ohlson, Ja, 1980. "Financial Ratios And The Probabilistic Prediction Of Bankruptcy," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 109-131.
    18. Li, Feng, 2008. "Annual report readability, current earnings, and earnings persistence," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2-3), pages 221-247, August.
    19. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Wu, Di, 2013. "Word power: A new approach for content analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 712-729.
    20. Altman, Edward I. & Saunders, Anthony, 1997. "Credit risk measurement: Developments over the last 20 years," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(11-12), pages 1721-1742, December.
    21. Jacobson, Tor & Linde, Jesper & Roszbach, Kasper, 2006. "Internal ratings systems, implied credit risk and the consistency of banks' risk classification policies," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(7), pages 1899-1926, July.
    22. Longstaff, Francis A., 2010. "The subprime credit crisis and contagion in financial markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 436-450, September.
    23. Tim Loughran & Bill Mcdonald, 2016. "Textual Analysis in Accounting and Finance: A Survey," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 1187-1230, September.
    24. Kristian D. Allee & Matthew D. Deangelis, 2015. "The Structure of Voluntary Disclosure Narratives: Evidence from Tone Dispersion," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(2), pages 241-274, May.
    25. Paul C. Tetlock, 2007. "Giving Content to Investor Sentiment: The Role of Media in the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1139-1168, June.
    26. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:1259-1294 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron S, 1973. "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 637-654, May-June.
    28. Augustin, Patrick & Subrahmanyam, Marti G. & Tang, Dragon Yongjun & Wang, Sarah Qian, 2014. "Credit Default Swaps: A Survey," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 9(1-2), pages 1-196, December.
    29. Jorion, Philippe & Zhang, Gaiyan, 2007. "Good and bad credit contagion: Evidence from credit default swaps," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 860-883, June.
    30. Ertugrul, Mine & Lei, Jin & Qiu, Jiaping & Wan, Chi, 2017. "Annual Report Readability, Tone Ambiguity, and the Cost of Borrowing," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(2), pages 811-836, April.
    31. Tim Loughran & Bill Mcdonald, 2011. "When Is a Liability Not a Liability? Textual Analysis, Dictionaries, and 10‐Ks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(1), pages 35-65, February.
    32. Tzu‐Ting Chiu & Yuyan Guan & Jeong‐Bon Kim, 2018. "The Effect of Risk Factor Disclosures on the Pricing of Credit Default Swaps," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(4), pages 2191-2224, December.
    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. Augustin, Patrick & Subrahmanyam, Marti G. & Tang, Dragon Yongjun & Wang, Sarah Qian, 2014. "Credit Default Swaps: A Survey," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 9(1-2), pages 1-196, December.
    2. Nadine Gatzert & Dinah Heidinger, 2020. "An Empirical Analysis of Market Reactions to the First Solvency and Financial Condition Reports in the European Insurance Industry," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 87(2), pages 407-436, June.
    3. Tim Loughran & Bill Mcdonald, 2016. "Textual Analysis in Accounting and Finance: A Survey," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 1187-1230, September.
    4. Senave, Elseline & Jans, Mieke J. & Srivastava, Rajendra P., 2023. "The application of text mining in accounting," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    5. John Donovan & Jared Jennings & Kevin Koharki & Joshua Lee, 2021. "Measuring credit risk using qualitative disclosure," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 815-863, June.
    6. Kumar, Rahul & Deb, Soumya Guha & Mukherjee, Shubhadeep, 2020. "Do words reveal the latent truth? Identifying communication patterns of corporate losers," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    7. 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).
    8. Bian, Shibo & Jia, Dekui & Li, Ruihai & Sun, Wujun & Yan, Zhipeng & Zheng, Yingfei, 2021. "Can management tone predict IPO performance? – Evidence from mandatory online roadshows in China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    9. Bakarich, Kathleen M. & Hossain, Mahmud & Hossain, Mahmud & Weintrop, Joseph, 2019. "Different time, different tone: Company life cycle," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 69-86.
    10. Richard Frankel & Jared Jennings & Joshua Lee, 2022. "Disclosure Sentiment: Machine Learning vs. Dictionary Methods," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 5514-5532, July.
    11. Stephen Zamore & Kwame Ohene Djan & Ilan Alon & Bersant Hobdari, 2018. "Credit Risk Research: Review and Agenda," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(4), pages 811-835, March.
    12. Peng Liang & Nan Hu & Ling Liu & Ting Zhang, 2023. "Managerial tone and investors' hedging activities: Evidence from credit default swaps," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(4), pages 3971-3998, December.
    13. Christian Lohmann & Thorsten Ohliger, 2020. "Bankruptcy prediction and the discriminatory power of annual reports: empirical evidence from financially distressed German companies," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 90(1), pages 137-172, February.
    14. Guo, Haifeng & Wang, Ying & Wang, Bo & Ge, Yuanjing, 2022. "Does prospectus AE affect IPO underpricing? A content analysis of the Chinese stock market," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1-12.
    15. Liu, Pu & Nguyen, Hazel T., 2020. "CEO characteristics and tone at the top inconsistency," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    16. Chen, Chen & Hanlon, Dean & Khedmati, Mehdi & Wake, James, 2023. "Annual report readability and equity mispricing," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3).
    17. Sanjiv Das & Xin Huang & Soji Adeshina & Patrick Yang & Leonardo Bachega, 2023. "Credit Risk Modeling with Graph Machine Learning," INFORMS Joural on Data Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(2), pages 197-217, October.
    18. D. G. DeBoskey & Yan Luo & Linying Zhou, 2019. "CEO power, board oversight, and earnings announcement tone," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 657-680, February.
    19. Rjiba, Hatem & Saadi, Samir & Boubaker, Sabri & Ding, Xiaoya (Sara), 2021. "Annual report readability and the cost of equity capital," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    20. Shuangyan Li & Guangrui Wang & Yongli Luo, 2022. "Tone of language, financial disclosure, and earnings management: a textual analysis of form 20-F," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-24, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Textual Analysis; Default Risk; Uncertainty; Tone; Accounting Disclosure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting

    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:jocaae:v:19:y:2023:i:3:s1815566923000309. 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: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-contemporary-accounting-and-economics .

    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.