IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/acctbr/v48y2018i6p674-699.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evaluating the information content of earnings forecasts

Author

Listed:
  • David Ashton
  • Chau (Ruby) Trinh

Abstract

This study develops a framework to compare the ability of alternative earnings forecast approaches to capture the market expectation of future earnings. Given prior evidence of analysts’ systematic optimistic bias, we decompose earnings surprises into analysts’ earnings surprises and adjustments based on alternative forecasting models. An equal market response to these two components indicates that the associated earnings forecast is a sufficient estimate of the market expectation of future earnings. To apply our framework, we examine four recent regression-based earnings forecasting models, alongside a simple earnings-based random walk model and analysts’ forecasts. Using the earnings forecasts of the model that satisfies our sufficiency condition, we identify a set of stocks for which the market is unduly pessimistic about future earnings. The investment strategy of buying and holding these stocks generates statistically significant abnormal returns. We offer an explanation as to why this and similar strategies might be successful.

Suggested Citation

  • David Ashton & Chau (Ruby) Trinh, 2018. "Evaluating the information content of earnings forecasts," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(6), pages 674-699, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:acctbr:v:48:y:2018:i:6:p:674-699
    DOI: 10.1080/00014788.2017.1415800
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00014788.2017.1415800
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00014788.2017.1415800?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. Peter D. Easton & Gregory A. Sommers, 2007. "Effect of Analysts' Optimism on Estimates of the Expected Rate of Return Implied by Earnings Forecasts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(5), pages 983-1015, December.
    2. So, Eric C., 2013. "A new approach to predicting analyst forecast errors: Do investors overweight analyst forecasts?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 615-640.
    3. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 2000. "Forecasting Profitability and Earnings," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(2), pages 161-175, April.
    4. Rozeff, Michael S. & Kinney, William Jr., 1976. "Capital market seasonality: The case of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 379-402, October.
    5. 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.
    6. Jones, Jj, 1991. "Earnings Management During Import Relief Investigations," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 193-228.
    7. James Claus & Jacob Thomas, 2001. "Equity Premia as Low as Three Percent? Evidence from Analysts' Earnings Forecasts for Domestic and International Stock Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(5), pages 1629-1666, October.
    8. 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.
    9. Pietro Perotti & Alfred Wagenhofer, 2014. "Earnings Quality Measures and Excess Returns," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5-6), pages 545-571, June.
    10. Lee, Wayne Y. & Jiang, Christine X. & Indro, Daniel C., 2002. "Stock market volatility, excess returns, and the role of investor sentiment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(12), pages 2277-2299.
    11. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2015. "A five-factor asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 1-22.
    12. Brown, Lawrence D. & Hagerman, Robert L. & Griffin, Paul A. & Zmijewski, Mark E., 1987. "An evaluation of alternative proxies for the market's assessment of unexpected earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 159-193, July.
    13. Ball, R & Brown, P, 1968. "Empirical Evaluation Of Accounting Income Numbers," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(2), pages 159-178.
    14. Frankel, Richard & Kothari, S.P. & Weber, Joseph, 2006. "Determinants of the informativeness of analyst research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1-2), pages 29-54, April.
    15. Collins, Daniel W. & Kothari, S. P., 1989. "An analysis of intertemporal and cross-sectional determinants of earnings response coefficients," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2-3), pages 143-181, July.
    16. Abarbanell, JS & Bushee, BJ, 1997. "Fundamental analysis, future earnings, and stock prices," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 1-24.
    17. Katrien Bosquet & Peter de Goeij & Kristien Smedts, 2015. "Analysts' earnings forecasts: coexistence and dynamics of overconfidence and strategic incentives," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(3), pages 307-322, April.
    18. Fama, Eugene F., 1998. "Market efficiency, long-term returns, and behavioral finance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 283-306, September.
    19. Frankel, Richard & Lee, Charles M. C., 1998. "Accounting valuation, market expectation, and cross-sectional stock returns," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 283-319, June.
    20. James A. Ohlson, 1991. "The theory of value and earnings, and an introduction to the Ball†Brown analysis," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 8(1), pages 1-19, September.
    21. Campbell, Sean D. & Sharpe, Steven A., 2009. "Anchoring Bias in Consensus Forecasts and Its Effect on Market Prices," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(2), pages 369-390, April.
    22. Brown, Lawrence D. & Hagerman, Robert L. & Griffin, Paul A. & Zmijewski, Mark E., 1987. "Security analyst superiority relative to univariate time-series models in forecasting quarterly earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 61-87, April.
    23. Walther, BR, 1997. "Investor sophistication and market earnings expectations," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 157-179.
    24. Leon Zolotoy, 2012. "Earnings Surprise Implicit in Stock Prices: Which Earnings Forecasting Models are Investors Using and What Determines Their Choice?," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(9-10), pages 1161-1179, November.
    25. 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.
    26. Smith, David B. & Pourciau, Susan, 1988. "A comparison of the financial characteristics of December and non-December year-end companies," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 335-344, December.
    27. Mark T. Bradshaw & Richard G. Sloan, 2002. "GAAP versus The Street: An Empirical Assessment of Two Alternative Definitions of Earnings," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 41-66, March.
    28. Dichev, Ilia D. & Tang, Vicki Wei, 2009. "Earnings volatility and earnings predictability," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1-2), pages 160-181, March.
    29. Kallapur, Sanjay, 1994. "Dividend payout ratios as determinants of earnings response coefficients : A test of the free cash flow theory," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 359-375, May.
    30. Peter Easton & Gary Taylor & Pervin Shroff & Theodore Sougiannis, 2002. "Using Forecasts of Earnings to Simultaneously Estimate Growth and the Rate of Return on Equity Investment," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(3), pages 657-676, June.
    31. Mark T. Bradshaw & Scott A. Richardson & Richard G. Sloan, 2001. "Do Analysts and Auditors Use Information in Accruals?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 45-74, June.
    32. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2006. "Profitability, investment and average returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 491-518, December.
    33. Smith Bamber, Linda & Christensen, Theodore E. & Gaver, Kenneth M., 2000. "Do we really 'know' what we think we know? A case study of seminal research and its subsequent overgeneralization," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 103-129, 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. Kothari, S. P., 2001. "Capital markets research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 105-231, September.
    2. 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.
    3. So, Eric C., 2013. "A new approach to predicting analyst forecast errors: Do investors overweight analyst forecasts?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 615-640.
    4. Ramnath, Sundaresh & Rock, Steve & Shane, Philip, 2008. "The financial analyst forecasting literature: A taxonomy with suggestions for further research," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 34-75.
    5. 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.
    6. Khimich, Natalya, 2017. "A comparison of alternative cash flow and discount rate news proxies," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 31-52.
    7. Ruffing-Straube, Patricia, 2015. "Implizite Eigenkapitalkosten und der Fehler in den Analystenprognosen in der Schweiz," Die Unternehmung - Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 69(4), pages 418-439.
    8. Wu, Jin (Ginger) & Zhang, Lu, 2010. "Does Risk Explain Anomalies? Evidence from Expected Return Estimates," Working Paper Series 2010-18, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    9. Vitor Azevedo & Patrick Bielstein & Manuel Gerhart, 2021. "Earnings forecasts: the case for combining analysts’ estimates with a cross-sectional model," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 545-579, February.
    10. Lin, Hai & Tao, Xinyuan & Wu, Chunchi, 2022. "Forecasting earnings with combination of analyst forecasts," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 133-159.
    11. Kewei Hou & Haitao Mo & Chen Xue & Lu Zhang, 2019. "Which Factors?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 23(1), pages 1-35.
    12. Lu Zhang, 2017. "The Investment CAPM," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 23(4), pages 545-603, September.
    13. Kewei Hou & Haitao Mo & Chen Xue & Lu Zhang, 2017. "The Economics of Value Investing," NBER Working Papers 23563, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Sami Keskek & James N. Myers & Linda A. Myers, 2020. "Investors' Misweighting of Firm‐Level Information and the Market's Expectations of Earnings," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(3), pages 1828-1853, September.
    15. S. P. Kothari & Charles Wasley, 2019. "Commemorating the 50‐Year Anniversary of Ball and Brown (1968): The Evolution of Capital Market Research over the Past 50 Years," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(5), pages 1117-1159, December.
    16. Azevedo, Vitor, 2023. "Analysts’ underreaction and momentum strategies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    17. Yin, Libo & Liao, Huiyi, 2021. "Big is brilliant: Understanding the Chinese size effect through profitability shocks," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    18. Hou, Kewei & Xue, Chen & Zhang, Lu, 2017. "Replicating Anomalies," Working Paper Series 2017-10, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    19. Pham, Anh Viet, 2019. "Political risk and cost of equity: The mediating role of political connections," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 64-87.
    20. Bartram, Söhnke M. & Grinblatt, Mark, 2018. "Agnostic fundamental analysis works," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(1), pages 125-147.

    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:taf:acctbr:v:48:y:2018:i:6:p:674-699. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RABR20 .

    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.