Earnings Announcement Returns Research Articles

The price of firm-level information uncertainty

Firm-level uncertainty is difficult to measure in nature. We construct a new measure of firm-level information uncertainty based on uncertainty premium implied by earnings announcement returns. This new measure fundamentally differs from other firm-level uncertainty measures. We find that high-uncertainty firms outperform low-uncertainty firms by 9.59 % per annum on a risk-adjusted basis. Furthermore, this return predictability persists for up to five quarters. Our uncertainty measure and its return predictability are primarily driven by the idiosyncratic component. Overall, our results support the existence of an uncertainty premium and cast doubt on the hedgeability of uncertainty.

Understanding Analysts’ Use of Macroeconomic News

Using a comprehensive measure, the Macroeconomic News Index (MNI), we examine how analysts use macroeconomic news in their earnings forecasts. We find that analysts incorporate but underreact to quarterly macroeconomic news. Cross-sectionally, analysts’ reaction to macroeconomic news varies in a predictable way. Analysts incorporate macroeconomic news more efficiently when firms have lower exposure to the macro economy, when macroeconomic uncertainty is low, and when analysts have more industry-specific experience. Finally, we examine the implications of macroeconomic news on earnings formation and stock returns. We find that quarterly MNI is informative about the procyclicality of firms’ sales and costs and analysts underreact only to sales-side information. We also document that quarterly MNI is predictive of subsequent earnings announcement returns, indicating that investors also underreact to macroeconomic news. JEL Classifications: G12; G14; G24

Firm-specific Information Processing and the Delayed Discovery of Macroeconomic News: Evidence from Earnings Announcement Returns

Firm-specific Information Processing and the Delayed Discovery of Macroeconomic News: Evidence from Earnings Announcement Returns

Climate Change, Firm Performance, and Investor Surprises

We link records of firm performance, equity analyst forecast errors, and stock returns around companies’ earnings announcements to firm-specific measures of heat exposure for more than 17,000 firms in 93 countries from 1995 to 2019. We find that increased exposure to extremely high temperatures reduces firms’ revenues and operating income. A one-standard-deviation increase in the number of hot days decreases revenues (operating income) by 0.6% (1.8%) of the average quarterly revenue (operating income). Moreover, we provide evidence that increased heat exposure impacts negatively on firm financial performance relative to analyst predictions and on earnings announcement returns. These findings indicate that capital market participants do not fully anticipate the economic consequences of heat as a first order physical climate risk. This paper was accepted by Colin Mayer, Special Section of Management Science on Business and Climate Change. Funding: N. Pankratz gratefully acknowledges financial support from the French Social Investment Forum and the Principles for Responsible Investment [PhD Research Grant 2017]. Supplemental Material: Data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4685 .

Responses in divergence of opinion to earnings announcements: evidence from American depository receipts

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between investors' divergence of opinions and the asset prices of foreign stocks and also examine the effect of home market country-level factors on the influence of divergency of opinions on stock price.Design/methodology/approachThe authors employ panel data estimation with fixed effects to examine the host market response in divergent opinions to the earnings announcements. The paper uses the American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) of 42 countries from 1985 to 2011.FindingsThe authors find a negative relationship between differences of opinions and excess quarterly earnings announcement returns, and investors do process information asymmetrically based on good and bad earnings shocks. In addition, the authors find the negative relationship between divergent opinions and excess earnings announcement returns in ADRs is more pronounced in countries with short-sales restrictions, while other home-market country-level factors – the enforcement of insider trading law, legal origin, investor protection and rating on accounting standard – do not influence the relationship between investors' divergency of opinion and stock returns.Originality/valueThis paper is among the first to bring asymmetric effects on convergence in Miller framework and enhance the understanding of price convergence documented in Miller (1977). In addition, this study incorporates home-market country-level factors in explaining the relationship between investors' divergency of opinions and stock returns.

The Puzzle of Frequent and Large Issues of Debt and Equity

AbstractMore frequent, larger, and more recent debt and equity issues in the prior 3 fiscal years are followed by lower stock returns in the subsequent year. The intercept of a q-factor calendar-time regression for the value-weighted (VW) portfolio of firms with at least 3 large issues is −0.63% per month (t-stat. = −4.31). Purging the factor returns of recent issuers increases the magnitude of the estimated underperformance following frequent equity issues. A VW Fama–MacBeth regression shows that firms with 3 equity issues underperform nonissuers by 0.65% per month (t-stat. = −2.65). Earnings announcement returns are low following frequent issues, especially equity issues.

The impact of debt covenants on earnings announcement returns

ABSTRACT We study the impact of debt covenants on earnings announcement returns, using event-study methodology, by creating 10 covenant groups and a covenant index. We find that during bad news, whether it stems from a bad earnings surprise based on analyst forecasts or a negative average market reaction, both the index and most covenant groups display a significantly negative impact on announcement returns. For good news, particularly when the market reaction is positive on average, we also observe a significantly positive effect from some covenant groups, but not the index. The strongest impact on returns comes mostly from debt-related covenants such as leverage tests, cross-default clause and debt issue restrictions. Finally, we also show that regardless of firm characteristics, risk measures or exposure to information asymmetry, most covenants have a negative impact on announcement returns for all firms when the news is bad. For the full sample and the good news subsample, however, we find that small, risky firms with high information asymmetry issues are rewarded by the market and vice versa.

Why Firms Announce Good News Late: Earnings Management and Financial Reporting Timeliness*

ABSTRACTPrior studies find that delayed earnings announcements tend to communicate unfavorable news, and investors react negatively when firms delay earnings announcements. However, these findings do not explain why investors discount delayed earnings, even after controlling for the earnings news, and why firms sometimes announce good news late. Motivated by theory from Trueman (1990) that attempts to explain these phenomena, we examine whether announcement delays indicate earnings management. We predict and find that good news firms with higher discretionary accruals are more likely to announce earnings late. Consistent with post fiscal year‐end activities driving announcement delays, we fail to find a relation between measures of real earnings management and late announcements. Using a last‐chance earnings management measure based on tax expense manipulation, we also predict and find strong evidence that good news firms engaging in last‐chance earnings management are more likely to delay earnings announcements. Consistent with Trueman's (1990) theory that earnings management explains why investors discount delayed earnings announcements, we find that, on average, earnings announcement returns are 1.4% lower for late announcers relying on last‐chance earnings management to report good news. Overall, our findings suggest that announcement delays provide information about not only the sign of the earnings news but also the potential for earnings management.

The Disappearing Outperformance of Post-reorg Equity

Using trading information from both over-the-counter (OTC) markets and public exchanges of a comprehensive sample of relisted Chapter 11 firms in the past four decades, we find that newly issued equity from these firms outperforms industry- and characteristics-matched portfolios by 40--50% during the 200 trading days post emergence on average, but the median abnormal return is close to zero. The superior returns are almost exclusive to firms traded in the OTC markets. The equal-weighted calendar time portfolio generates 7.2% annualized excess returns over a five-factor benchmark, but the outperformance disappears in the recent decade. The post-emergence earnings announcement returns are positive only in the 2000s, when institutional ownership of post-reorganization equity increased significantly during the same time. The evidence suggests that the outperformance of post-reorg equity documented in earlier studies is likely due to market expectation errors for future earnings, which are corrected in recent periods by sophisticated institutional investors.

Correction to: Earnings announcement return extrapolation

Correction to: Earnings announcement return extrapolation

Explaining firms’ earnings announcement stock returns using FactSet and I/B/E/S data feeds

Since 2001, the number of financial statement line items forecasted by analysts and managers that I/B/E/S and FactSet capture in their data feeds has soared. Using this new data, we find that 13 item surprises—11 income statement-based and 2 cash flow statement-based analyst and management guidance surprises—reliably explain firms’ signed earnings announcement returns. No balance sheet or expense surprises are significant. The most important surprises are (i) one-quarter-ahead sales guidance surprise, (ii) analyst sales surprise, (iii) annual Street earnings guidance surprise, and (iv) analyst Street earnings surprise. We also find that the adjusted R2s of our multivariate regressions are three times higher than the adjusted R2s of univariate Street earnings surprise regressions, and that the four most important surprises account for approximately half of this increase in explanatory power.

The relative performance of green REITs: Evidence from financial analysts’ forecasts and abnormal returns

The aim of this study is to analyze and compare the financial analysts’ forecasts accuracy and bias, and the abnormal earnings announcement returns of “green” and “non-green” U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs) from 2010 to 2018. First, we document the accuracy and the bias of financial analysts’ earnings and FFO forecasts on “green” and “non-green” REITs. Our results report that the level of accuracy and the level of optimism are different for both categories. Second, we observe that abnormal stock returns could be related to the adoption of “green” and sustainable measures. Our results shed a new light on the relative performance of REITs and highlight the potential link in the U.S. REIT industry between “greenness” analysts’ forecasts and abnormal returns on stock markets.

Earnings announcement return extrapolation

We propose that extrapolative beliefs about earnings announcement (EA) returns may contribute to the understanding of EA return patterns. We construct a theoretically motivated measure of extrapolative investors’ expectations based on a stock’s recent history of EA returns. We then show that this measure explains cross-sectional variation in stock returns and investor behavior around EAs. Stocks expected to have high EA returns, according to our measure, experience predictable increases in prices before EAs and predictable decreases afterward. These patterns are economically significant: investors that buy (sell) a portfolio that is long firms with high recent EA returns and short firms with low recent EA returns in the pre-EA (post-EA) period earn daily five-factor abnormal returns of 16.1 bps (18.3 bps). Using individual investor trades data and a measure of institutional trading, we find that individual and institutional investors are more likely to purchase stocks with high recent EA returns, consistent with at least a subset of investors forming extrapolative beliefs about EA returns.

Ownership Structure and Short Covering: Evidence from Earnings Announcements

“Sticky” ownership (including passive, insider, and long-term ownership) could hurt short-sellers by reducing the supply of shares available to buy-to-cover their positions. We examine the adverse effect of sticky ownership on short covering by focusing on the trading around earnings announcements. Heavily-shorted firms with sticky ownership experience higher returns and subsequent reversals after positive earnings surprises. The higher returns are the result of higher volume and greater price impact of short covering. Our inferences are robust to alternative samples around large changes in sticky ownership, a two-stage approach using residual ownership, and an exogenous short-covering trigger caused by macro funding shocks. The paper highlights a “dark-side” of sticky ownership to short-sellers, in contrast to prior work showing that passive ownership helps them by increasing lendable shares. The findings also suggest that the short covering and its interaction with ownership structure are correlated omitted variables in explaining earnings announcement returns.

Analyst Forecast Revision Consistency and Bias in Earnings Forecast Revisions

We address whether analysts bias earnings forecast revisions and convey the bias using forecast revision consistency, i.e., the extent to which analyst reports with earnings forecast revisions include stock recommendation and target price revisions consistent in sign with the earnings forecast revisions, the sign of which is the sign of earnings forecast revision. Incentives to curry favor with management can constrain analysts to issue biased earnings forecast revisions. As predicted, we find that forecast revision consistency is (i) positively associated with the market reaction to the analyst report; (ii) positively associated with consensus analyst forecast error (AFE), i.e., actual earnings minus the consensus of the analysts’ forecasts; and (iii) negatively associated with earnings announcement returns, incremental to AFE. Absolute forecast revision consistency is smaller (larger) when firms eliminate (initiate) guidance. These findings are consistent with analysts using forecast revision consistency to convey information about bias in their earnings forecast revisions.

Orange is the New Black: Changing Landscapes of Earnings Surprises and the Market Reaction

In this paper, we examine the changing time-series properties of the earnings-return relation and explore the implications of its changing landscape for the literature. We document strikingly opposite time-series patterns of earnings surprises and associated market reaction. Earnings surprises have been increasing over time, with the mean analyst forecast error rising from negative 8 cents in 1990 to positive 1.4 cents in 2019. However, average earnings announcement returns have declined from 0.30% in 1990 to -0.35% in 2019, turning negative in the past 15 years. As firms strive to meet or beat earnings expectations, strong past performance of a firm and strong performance of other firms raise the market’s earnings expectation above analysts’ consensus forecast, leading to investors’ disappointment upon earnings announcements. Our evidence has broad implications for appropriate earnings benchmarking, for empirical design when examining the earnings-return relation, for a disappearing earnings announcement premium, and for disappearing discontinuity in the earnings surprise distribution around zero.

Cross-Predictability of Earnings and Stock Returns: A Latent Factor Approach

I propose a new method, three-pass regression filter developed by Kelly and Pruitt (2015), to predict non-announcing firms’ earnings news using the cross-section of all available early announcers’ earnings news, the number of which can be as large as thousands. The method assumes a set of common latent factors driving the earnings news of non-announcing firms and early announcers and thus efficiently reduces the dimension of announced earnings. Empirical tests show that the extracted measure strongly predicts the earnings surprise and the earnings announcement return with both statistical and economic significance. A long-short trading strategy based on the extracted information realizes a 10% value-weighted alpha annually, indicating a delayed reaction of investors. The return predictability is stronger for small firms or firms with less investor attention. Controlling a series of documented information channels has little impact on the predictive power of this extracted measure.

Moving Forward: Management Guidance and Earnings Announcement Returns

We provide new evidence on the role of management guidance in explaining earnings announcement-period returns. We show that guidance practices changed around the financial crisis in ways likely to affect the information content of guidance bundled with earnings. Managers provide guidance for a number of metrics and have moved towards annual and away from quarterly guidance, perhaps because of concerns about the managerial “myopia” some associate with quarterly EPS guidance. EPS and/or sales guidance news is incrementally informative and explains returns to about the same extent as earnings news, more so when earnings disappoint or firms report large beats. Specifications that capture the sign and consistency of signals are about as informative as those that use magnitudes. Similar to previous evidence, the response is asymmetric, with a stronger response to adverse earnings news accompanied by downgrades.

Post-earnings announcement drift: Evidence from Turkey

We study the post-earnings announcement drift (PEAD) anomaly and its determinants in Borsa Istanbul using quarterly earnings announcements and three different surprise measures. We find evidence supportive of the existence of PEAD in the Turkish stock market. Sorting stocks each quarter into three quantiles according to an earnings surprise measure based on past earnings, we find both statistically and economically significant difference of 2.9% in average cumulative abnormal return between high earnings surprise firms and low earnings surprise firms in the 60 days following the announcement. The hedge returns obtained using analyst forecast based surprise measure as well earnings announcement return based surprise measure are also significant at 2.9% and 2.2% respectively. The positive relation between post-announcement abnormal returns and the surprise in earnings remain significant after controlling for an extensive list of explanatory variables. Among these explanatory variables, we find that firm size has a negative impact on the magnitude of this positive association between surprise and subsequent equity returns. Finally, using two separate approaches we show that multifactor models fail to explain the return differentials following earnings announcements.

Risk-Neutral Skewness, Informed Trading, and the Cross Section of Stock Returns

AbstractIn this article, we use volatility surface data from options contracts to document a strong, robust, and positive cross-sectional relation between risk-neutral skewness (RNS) and subsequent stock returns. The differential return between high- and low-RNS stocks amounts to 0.17% per week. Preannouncement RNS is positively related to earnings announcement returns, and the positive RNS–return relation is more pronounced for other nonscheduled news releases. This suggests that it is informed trading that drives the positive relation between RNS and subsequent stock returns. We also find that RNS contains incremental information beyond trading signals captured by option-implied volatility and volume.