IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/stabus/1693r.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Analyst Earnings Forecast Revisions and the Pricing of Accruals

Author

Listed:
  • Barth, Mary E.

    (Stanford U)

  • Hutton, Amy P.

    (Dartmouth College)

Abstract

We investigate the relation between two market anomalies to provide insights into analysts' role as information intermediaries. Prior research finds that accruals and analyst earnings forecast revisions predict future returns. We find that the accrual and forecast revision strategies generate returns of 15.5% and 5.5% when implemented independently. Strikingly, a combined strategy that uses forecast revisions to refine the accrual strategy generates a return of 28.5%. Firms with consistent accrual and forecast revision signals have less persistent accruals and earnings. We also find that accruals can be used to refine the forecast revision strategy--high accruals are associated with overoptimism in analyst forecasts. Our findings indicate that although forecast revisions reflect information about accrual and earnings persistence beyond that reflected in the level of current year accruals, investors do not fully incorporate this information into their valuation assessments.

Suggested Citation

  • Barth, Mary E. & Hutton, Amy P., 2003. "Analyst Earnings Forecast Revisions and the Pricing of Accruals," Research Papers 1693r, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:stabus:1693r
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://gsbapps.stanford.edu/researchpapers/library/RP1693R.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Collins, Daniel W. & Hribar, Paul, 2000. "Earnings-based and accrual-based market anomalies: one effect or two?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 101-123, February.
    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. Min (Shirley) Liu, 2021. "What Information in Financial Statements Could Be Used to Predict the Risk of Equity Investment?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-24, August.

    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. 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.
    2. Hui, Kai Wai & Nelson, Karen K. & Yeung, P. Eric, 2016. "On the persistence and pricing of industry-wide and firm-specific earnings, cash flows, and accruals," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 185-202.
    3. David Hirshleifer & Sonya S. Lim & Siew Hong Teoh, 2011. "Limited Investor Attention and Stock Market Misreactions to Accounting Information," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(1), pages 35-73.
    4. Jonathan A. Milian, 2015. "Unsophisticated Arbitrageurs and Market Efficiency: Overreacting to a History of Underreaction?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(1), pages 175-220, March.
    5. Guanming He, 2021. "Credit rating, post‐earnings‐announcement drift, and arbitrage from transient institutions," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(7-8), pages 1434-1467, July.
    6. Even-Tov, Omri, 2017. "When does the bond price reaction to earnings announcements predict future stock returns?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 167-182.
    7. David Hirshleifer & Kewei Hou & Siew Hong Teoh, 2012. "The Accrual Anomaly: Risk or Mispricing?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 320-335, February.
    8. Jeff L. McMullin & Brian P. Miller & Brady J. Twedt, 2019. "Increased mandated disclosure frequency and price formation: evidence from the 8-K expansion regulation," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 1-33, March.
    9. Michael Sullivan & Andrew Jianzhong Zhang, 2017. "The Accrual Anomaly and the Announcement Effect of Short Arbitrage," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 7(01), pages 1-26, March.
    10. Stavros Degiannakis & George Giannopoulos, 2009. "Is PEAD a consequence of the presence of the cognitive bias of self-attribution in investors' expectations regarding permanent earnings? Evidence from Athens Stock Exchange," International Journal of Computational Economics and Econometrics, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 1(1), pages 89-110.
    11. Rasmi Meqbel & Mohammad Alta'any & Salah Kayed & Ahmed Al‐Omush, 2024. "Earnings management and sustainability assurance: The moderating role of CSR committee," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(3), pages 1769-1785, May.
    12. repec:grz:wpsses:2020-04 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Sticca, Ralph Melles & Nakao, Silvio Hiroshi, 2019. "Hedge accounting choice as exchange loss avoidance under financial crisis: Evidence from Brazil," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    14. Photis Panayides & Neophytos Lambertides, 2011. "Fundamental Analysis and Relative Efficiency of Maritime Firms: Dry Bulk vs Tanker Firms," Chapters, in: Kevin Cullinane (ed.), International Handbook of Maritime Economics, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Ming‐Chang Wang & Yu‐Jia Ding, 2021. "Does the quarterly accrual anomaly exist in Taiwan's stock market? Evidence from Manager's earnings management," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(3), pages 688-701, April.
    16. Kim Ittonen & Karla Johnstone & Emma-Riikka Myllym�ki, 2015. "Audit Partner Public-Client Specialisation and Client Abnormal Accruals," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 607-633, September.
    17. Kothari, S. P., 2001. "Capital markets research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 105-231, September.
    18. Chung-Hua Shen & Yu-Li Huang, 2013. "Effects of earnings management on bank cost of debt," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 53(1), pages 265-300, March.
    19. LaFond, Ryan, 2005. "Is the Accrual Anomaly a Global Anomaly?," Working papers 27856, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    20. Dana Hollie & Philip B. Shane & Qiuhong Zhao & Steven Cahan, 2017. "The role of financial analysts in stock market efficiency with respect to annual earnings and its cash and accrual components," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(1), pages 199-237, March.
    21. Bergstresser, Daniel & Philippon, Thomas, 2006. "CEO incentives and earnings management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 511-529, June.

    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:ecl:stabus:1693r. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gsstaus.html .

    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.