Stock Returns and Accounting Earnings

Abstract

Although much market-based accounting research is based on regressions of abnormal returns on contemporaneous unexpected earnings, many have despaired about the intrinsic ability of accounting earnings to explain stock returns. These regressions exhibit low R2, lower than expected coefficients on unexpected earnings (ERC's), and various unusual features including non-linearity, lower R2 and response coefficients for loss firms, and lower R2 and response coefficients for high-growth and high-tech firms. Some improvement in explanatory power has been achieved by including various proxies for information that is currently available about future period earnings. This paper contributes to that line of research by deriving a specification, from the abnormal earnings model, that extends the traditional ERC regression by including current period forecast revisions of future period earnings. Relative to the traditional regression, the full specification increases R2 substantially, reduces the bias in coefficient estimates (caused by omitted correlated variables), and mutes the three unusual features mentioned above.