Earnings Information Research Articles

Can the transmission of entrepreneurs' We Media information improve the value relevance of earnings? Evidence from China

PurposeFollowing the growing adoption of social media, many entrepreneurs are launching personal social media channels. This study focuses on the effect of entrepreneurs' shared information on We Media platforms on the value relevance of their earnings.Design/methodology/approachUsing entrepreneurs' We Media data collected from A-share-listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2010 to 2018, this study investigates the effect of the data on the value relevance of earnings using the modified Ohlson model. The authors applied textual analysis to retrieve entrepreneurial We Media data acquired manually from Weibo.FindingsWe Media platforms can increase the value relevance of earnings. Entrepreneurs can enhance investor trust by establishing social ties with investors. Investors are more likely to recognize earnings information publicized by enterprises, owing to internal consistency. Particularly, value relevance improves significantly with more personal information being posted and more “likes” being acquired on entrepreneurs' We Media accounts. This positive effect is more obvious in privately owned and highly marketized regions.Originality/valueThe findings extend the research on the economic consequences of We Media as an important information channel, enrich the research on the social media posting behavior of entrepreneurs and provide a reference for enterprises to instill trust using new information disclosure methods and for governments to establish a safe internet environment to promote the sustainable development of the capital market.

Effect of geomagnetic activity on investors and managers: evidence from the pricing and timing of disclosure of earnings news

PurposeThis paper's purpose was to examine the impact of geomagnetic activity (GMA) on the timing and valuation of earnings information disclosed by firms every quarter.Design/methodology/approachThe authors start the analyses with a sample of 112,669 client firms from 1989 to 2018. To analyze the impact of GMA on the earnings response coefficient (ERC), the authors use the three-day cumulative abnormal returns and cumulative abnormal returns for the extended post-earnings announcement window [2, 75] as the dependent variables. The authors interact unexpected earnings (UE) with the C9 Index, an index commonly used to measure GMA and study how GMA affects the pricing of new public information. To examine the effect of GMA on the timing of disclosure of earnings news, the authors regress a variant of the GMA index on the propensity to disclose bad earnings news.FindingsThe authors find significantly lower earnings response coefficients during periods of high GMA. This effect is permanent and stock prices do not correctly incorporate the implications of earnings information over time. The authors also show that managerial behavior is affected by GMA as well and the managers are more (less) likely to release bad (good) news during periods of higher activity. Finally, the authors also find that in situations where stakeholders are likely to rely on modern technology that depends minimally on humans, the adverse impact of GMA on the pricing of earnings information is mitigated.Originality/valueThe literature on the effect of GMA on the capital market is very limited and focuses primarily on stock returns, while the behavioral finance literature focuses on circumstances like weather, temperature and sporting outcome to study how the investors' mood affects their capital market behavior. The authors add to both the literature by investigating how GMA influences investors' and managers' behaviors in the capital market.

Justice Evaluation of the Income Distribution (JEID): Development and validation of a short scale for the subjective assessment of objective differences in earnings.

Justice evaluations are proposed to provide a link between the objective level of inequality and the consequences at the individual and societal level. Available instruments, however, focus on the subjective perception of inequality and income distributions. In light of findings that subjective perceptions of inequality and income levels can be biased and subject to method effects, we present the newly developed Justice Evaluation of the Income Distribution (JEID) Scale, which captures justice evaluations of the actual earnings distribution. JEID comprises five items that provide respondents with earnings information for five groups at different segments along the distribution of earnings in a given country. We provide a German-language and an English-language version of the scale. The German-language version was developed and validated based on three comprehensive heterogeneous quota samples from Germany; the translated English-language version was validated in one comprehensive heterogeneous quota sample from the UK. Using latent profile analysis and k-means clustering, we identified three typical response patterns, which we labeled "inequality averse," "bottom-inequality averse," and "status quo justification." JEID was found to be related to normative orientations in the sense that egalitarian views were associated with stronger injustice evaluations at the bottom and top ends of the earnings distribution. With a completion time of between 1.50 and 2.75 min, the JEID scale can be applied in any self-report survey in the social sciences to investigate the distribution, precursors, and consequences of individuals' subjective evaluations of objective differences in earnings.

Algorithmic Trading and Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift: A Cross-Country Study

Synopsis The research problem This study investigates whether algorithmic trading matters to post-earnings-announcement drift (PEAD) across 41 countries. Motivation The increasing importance of algorithms has sparked interest in how computer-triggered trades affect the formation of securities prices. Thus, a large body of research has emerged to probe the instantaneous impact of algorithmic trading on price discovery; however, little work explores the role of algorithms in efficient pricing of low-frequency financial statements. In addition, the literature on PEAD always highlights firm-level drivers of this phenomenon, whereas its country-level institutional determinants remain silent. The test hypotheses H1: Earnings-announcement algorithmic trading does not impact PEAD. H2: Country-level investor protection does not impact the association between earnings-announcement algorithmic trading and PEAD. H3: Country-level information dissemination does not impact the association between earnings-announcement algorithmic trading and PEAD. H4: Country-level disclosure requirements do not impact the association between earnings-announcement algorithmic trading and PEAD. Target population Various stakeholders include market traders, firm managers, regulators, and scholars. Adopted methodology Ordinary Least Square (OLS) Regressions. Analyses We follow Saglam [( 2020 ) Financial Management, 49, 33–67] to measure algorithmic trading using the transaction-level data. Based on a global sample covering 41 markets, we estimate the regression of PEAD on four proxies for algorithmic trading after considering firm-specific controls and fixed effects of country and year. Findings We find a negative and significant association between earnings-announcement algorithmic activity and PEAD. The documented relation retains despite addressing the endogeneity problem. Further analyses indicate that algorithmic participation mitigates investor disagreement, alleviates trader distraction, and reduces market friction, thus facilitating efficient pricing of earnings information. Finally, the impact of algorithmic trading on PEAD is more prominent in countries with stronger investor protection, faster information dissemination, and stricter disclosure requirements.

Pengaruh Komite Audit, Komisaris Independen, Kepemilikan Institusional, Free Cash Flow, Dan Leverage

Earnings quality reflects the actual performance of the company in generating operating income. Earnings quality can be an indication of the ability of earnings information to respond to the market. In addition, the quality of earnings gets attention and plays an important role in making investment decisions for investors and various parties.
 This study aims to determine the effect of audit committee, independent commissioners, institutional ownership, free cash flow, and leverage on earnings quality in food and beverage companies. The population in this study were all companies. There are 28 food and beverage companies. While the sample used as many as 20 samples with a total data in this study of 80 data. Then the data in this study were analyzed using descriptive statistics and panel data regression.
 The results showed that the audit committee, independent commissioners and institutional ownership, free cash flow, and leverage had a significant effect on earnings quality. Partially, audit committee has a significant positive effect, independent commissioners, institutional ownership, and free cash flow has no significant effect, and leverage has a negative significant effect on earnings quality.

FinBERT: A Large Language Model for Extracting Information from Financial Text*

ABSTRACTWe develop FinBERT, a state‐of‐the‐art large language model that adapts to the finance domain. We show that FinBERT incorporates finance knowledge and can better summarize contextual information in financial texts. Using a sample of researcher‐labeled sentences from analyst reports, we document that FinBERT substantially outperforms the Loughran and McDonald dictionary and other machine learning algorithms, including naïve Bayes, support vector machine, random forest, convolutional neural network, and long short‐term memory, in sentiment classification. Our results show that FinBERT excels in identifying the positive or negative sentiment of sentences that other algorithms mislabel as neutral, likely because it uses contextual information in financial text. We find that FinBERT's advantage over other algorithms, and Google's original bidirectional encoder representations from transformers model, is especially salient when the training sample size is small and in texts containing financial words not frequently used in general texts. FinBERT also outperforms other models in identifying discussions related to environment, social, and governance issues. Last, we show that other approaches underestimate the textual informativeness of earnings conference calls by at least 18% compared to FinBERT. Our results have implications for academic researchers, investment professionals, and financial market regulators.

Share pledging and earnings informativeness

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of share pledging by controlling shareholders on earnings informativeness.Design/methodology/approachUsing a sample of 23,120 firm-year observations from 2003 to 2019 in China, this paper examines how share pledging by controlling shareholders affects earnings informativeness, measured by earnings persistence and earnings response coefficients.FindingsThis paper finds that share pledging by controlling shareholders makes earnings less informative. The adverse impacts are more pronounced when share pledging distorts incentives of controlling shareholders to a greater extent and when the signaling of share pledging about a firm’s weak future performance is stronger. Finally, this paper further shows that the 2018 new regulation on share pledging effectively alleviates the negative impacts of share pledging on earnings informativeness.Originality/valueFirst, this paper adds to the growing literature on the economic consequence of share pledging by documenting the adverse impacts of share pledging on earnings informativeness. The literature on the economic consequence of share pledging is often mixed, which justifies further research on the impacts of share pledging on earnings informativeness. Second, this paper documents a new signaling channel through which share pledging affects earnings informativeness. Third, the finding of this paper on the 2018 new regulation on share pledging may be interesting to research agencies, such as the Chartered Financial analyst institute and Institutional Shareholder Services institute that recommend tightening regulations on share pledging.

Japanese Corporate Groupings (Keiretsu) and the Informativeness of Earnings

This paper examines the effect of Japanese corporate groupings, keiretsu, on the informativeness of earnings. Keiretsu firms maintain close financial and personal ties through cross-shareholding, credit holding, interlocking corporate directorates, and various business transactions. We propose that the strong interrelations of the keiretsu ownership structure enhance the informativeness of earnings through efficient monitoring of managerial performance. Our empirical results show that keiretsu firms have higher earnings response coefficients than those of non-keiretsu firms, the earnings response coefficient increases as the strength of the keiretsu relationship increases, and discretionary accruals by keiretsu firms are smaller than discretionary accruals of non-keiretsu firms. All of these results suggest that the monitoring ability of the keiretsu improves the informativeness of earnings.

Investor Disagreement, Disclosure Processing Costs, and Trading Volume Evidence from Social Media

ABSTRACTWe use posts on the investor-focused StockTwits social media network to generate new insights regarding investor disagreement, disclosure processing costs, and trading volume around earnings announcements. Using social media-based measures of disagreement, we find that both preannouncement disagreement and increases in disagreement around an earnings announcement are positively associated with trading volume. Drawing upon the disclosure processing costs literature, we provide evidence that the effects of disagreement increase when disclosure processing costs are lower. Our social media measures of disagreement remain significant after including traditional analyst earnings estimate measures of disagreement in the model. Our study provides new evidence on the importance of disclosure processing costs and is consistent with lower disclosure processing costs amplifying both the resolution of preannouncement disagreement and new disagreement about earnings information.Data AvailabilityAll data are available from the sources described in the text.

Consensus? An Examination of Differences in Earnings Information Across Forecast Data Providers

Consensus? An Examination of Differences in Earnings Information Across Forecast Data Providers

The Informativeness of Non-GAAP Earnings: Empirical Evidence on China

The Informativeness of Non-GAAP Earnings: Empirical Evidence on China

Career Concerns, Investment, and Management Forecasts

ABSTRACTA firm manager is concerned about both the firm value and the market assessments of his abilities. When investing in a project, he has private knowledge of his project-related ability that interacts with the project investment, and his general ability that produces a cash flow independent of the project cash flow. The concerns about the general (project-related) ability assessment create a signaling incentive to decrease (increase) investment. In the presence of underinvestment (overinvestment), higher-quality earnings information reduces (improves) equilibrium efficiency. When the manager issues an earnings forecast as an additional signaling device, the forecast is upwardly biased, and the equilibrium investment is smaller than that without a forecast. The latter is because the signaling incentive to decrease investment is strengthened. When the manager’s concerns about the general ability assessment are relatively large, he is better off by committing to no forecast. Novel empirical predictions about investment and earnings forecast emerge.JEL Classifications: D61; G14; M41.

Conservatism and stock price informativeness

AbstractThis paper examines how conservative financial reporting influences stock price informativeness, which is defined as the extent to which the current market price reflects future earnings information. Using the accuracy of the future earnings expectations embedded in the current equity price as a measure of stock price informativeness, I find that conservative reporting is positively associated with price informativeness. The results are robust to an alternative stock price informativeness measure, namely, specific return variation or price non‐synchronicity. Furthermore, I also find that a greater positive association between conservatism and stock price informativeness is associated with (1) lower analyst coverage and decreased forecast dispersion, (2) greater bid–ask spreads and greater R&D, and (3) lower financial disclosure quality, supporting the argument that main channel by which conservatism improves stock price informativeness is its impact on the information environment. Overall, the evidence suggests that (1) conservatism improves stock price informativeness by improving the firm's information environment, and (2) the marginal benefit of improvement in stock price informativeness via conservatism is more pronounced in firms with poorer information environments. The results further confirm that conservatism substitutes for information environments in ensuring more accurate equity pricing.

A New Perspective on Interpreting the Accounting Information of Listed Companies: Research on the Asset Structure Difference and Earnings Value Based on a Sustainable Development Strategic Perspective

The quality of accounting information of listed companies has always been of great concern for investors, creditors, government departments, and other stakeholders. As the core component of accounting information, earnings information is essential, which is hailed as a wind vane by every stakeholder. The sustainable development strategy of companies requires companies to reasonably allocate company resources and promote the long-term and rapid development of the company. Based on the sustainable development strategic perspective, this paper takes Chinese A-share non-financial listed companies from 2007 to 2020 as a sample to study the correlation between asset structure differences and earnings value relevance. The research logic of this paper is: the corporate strategy determines the resource allocation scheme of the company, the resource allocation scheme determines the asset structure, and the asset structure determines the generation mode of profits. Therefore, there are different profit compositions, and the differences in profit compositions lead to differences in the corporate earnings value relevance. The research results show that, overall, compared to the companies with a large proportion of investment assets, the companies with a large proportion of operating assets have a stronger earnings value relevance to their net profit. From the perspective of the main composition of profits, companies with a large proportion of operating assets have a stronger value relevance to their core profits. Companies with a large proportion of investment assets have a stronger value relevance to their investment income. Listed companies’ different asset structures is an essential factor affecting the corporate earnings value relevance. Additionally, listed companies’ different asset structure results from the corporate strategic development choice, which shows that the corporate strategy affects the relevance of the corporate earnings value. This provides a new perspective for accounting information users to interpret the corporate earnings information, helps accounting information users to understand and analyze corporate financial statements more accurately, and has a particular reference significance for investment decision making.

Benchmark Beating and Earnings Manipulation in Nigerian Firms

Earnings management among firms remains a central focus for academics, auditors and regulatory bodies. Benchmark-motivated earnings management occurs when managers engage in opportunistic activities, including flexible use of accounting standards to misrepresent the information in a firm’s financial reports. Academic research has focused on how firms manage earnings to beat benchmarks, but the evidence regarding firms in emerging African stock markets is scarce and none is available for Nigeria. We applied both accruals quality and discretionary accruals models to detect whether firms that beat earnings benchmarks report earnings differently from others. Using 161 firms listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange from 2002 to 2019, the study verifies how benchmark beaters manage earnings under the framework of two earnings thresholds – earnings (level) and positive earnings changes. Earnings persistence tests were carried out to verify whether benchmark beaters are consistent manipulators relative to non-beaters. The findings indicate that positive earnings benchmarks differ among the dichotomized groups. The evidence is not sufficient to validate that the change in earnings benchmarks motivates earnings discretions. However, the evidence may improve for larger samples. The study offers insights for informed decisions on the expectation of investment returns for investors, creditors, and other market partakers that require earnings information.

The Effect of Good Corporate Governance on Profit Management (Case Study: Transportation Companies Listed on the IDX)

Financial statements have the objective of presenting information related to financial condition and position, performance and changes in financial position that provide benefits to a large number of users of financial information, particularly profits that have been obtained. Finance is information that shows the company's achievement in generating profits. Earnings information is a part / component of the company's financial statements that aims to inform management performance, helping to estimate representative earnings capacity in the long term. This study aims to determine the effect of Independent Commissioners, Audit Committee, Institutional Ownership, Auditor Quality and Profitability on earnings management in transportation companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. This type of research is a causal quantitative research located on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) which is accessed through www.idx.co.id with a sample size of 5 companies during the 2015-2019 period using panel data linear regression analysis. The results showed that through the Chow and Hausman tests the fixed effects model (FEM) was used. The results of the t test show that partially the Independent Commissioner, Audit Committee, Institutional Ownership, Auditor Quality have an effect on Earning Management. Simultaneously the Independent Commissioner, Audit Committee, Institutional Ownership, Auditor Quality have an effect on Earnings Management.
 
 

CEOs' early-life disaster experience and corporate earnings quality: Focusing on the Great Chinese Famine.

This paper aims to examine the impact of CEOs' early-life disaster experiences on corporate earnings quality. We proxy the disaster experience with whether CEOs lived through the Great Chinese Famine and the famine intensity they experienced. The results indicate that CEOs' early-life famine experience is significantly positively associated with corporate earnings quality, and the famine effects are more obvious for CEOs who experienced the famine at adolescent ages. Further tests show that the famine experience effects are more pronounced in companies with high investor protection and cross-listing and with CEOs who have a relatively high level of education or background in economic management. The findings suggest CEOs would bear the imprint of an adverse early-life experience, which has risk aversion and learning effects on their decision making in corporate earnings information disclosure.

Abnormal trading volume, news and market efficiency: Evidence from the Jamaica Stock Exchange

This paper investigates market efficiency of the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE). Together, weak and semi-strong form efficiency claim that historical and newly released public information do not predict future stock price movement. We test both forms of market efficiency by analyzing stock price behavior during times of abnormal trading volume and around the release dates of earnings information. Abnormal trading volume may be driven by liquidity demand or reflect new or private information flow to the market. Using JSE data over the period 2000 to 2021, we find price dynamics consistent with price pressure as firms experience negative abnormal returns on the day of abnormal trading activity but offsetting positive abnormal stock returns on the following day. Further findings show post earnings announcement drift on the JSE. Taken as a whole, the evidence suggests violations of market efficiency and has implications for capital allocation in this emerging market.

Relevance of Earnings Value, Book Value, and Operating Cash Flow in Manufacturing Companies in Indonesia

Research aims: This study examines the value relevance of accounting information consisting of earnings information, book values, and operating cash flows after Indonesia uses the full convergence of IFRS Financial Accounting Standards.Design/Methodology/Approach: The value relevance test was conducted using Ohlson's (1995) pricing model and Easton and Harris' (1991) return model. The valuation model test employed two regression equations, i.e., testing the relationship between earnings information and book value with stock prices and then testing the relationship between earnings information, book value, and cash flow with stock prices. In addition, the return model testing was performed to examine the relationship between earnings information and earnings changes with stock returns and the relationship between cash flow and cash flow changes with stock returns. The research sample was 105 manufacturing companies, with a research period from 2016 to 2019.Research findings: The test results with the pricing model approach revealed that earnings and cash flow had value relevance, while book value had no value relevance. This study’s results suggest that earnings and cash flow information are helpful for investors in making investment decisions. Moreover, the test results with the return model approach also uncovered those earnings, changes in earnings, and changes in operating cash flows had value relevance while operating cash flows, on the other hand, had no value relevance.Theoretical contribution/Originality: The utilized two models complement each other, and this study provides empirical evidence for standard setters who can renew beliefs about how much accounting information is reflected in stock prices in Indonesia, especially the manufacturing sector, after the full convergence of IFRS Financial Accounting Standards is applied.

Worldwide earnings news and equity price movement: a supply-chain perspective

ABSTRACT This paper shows that worldwide earnings news can significantly influence the asset pricing in China, indicating the information transmission along the global supply chain. We investigate how stock prices of Chinese-listed firms react to the earnings announcements of their worldwide supply-chain partners and find that stock returns will exhibit a significant drift upwards (downwards) after the good (bad) news of their customers and suppliers. Moreover, we provide evidence that the equity price movement may be driven by the earnings information transmission between supply-chain partners and this effect is strengthened for the firms with higher information asymmetry or investor attention. Third, our primary results hold with a battery of robustness checks, including multiple controls consideration, proxy usage of earnings news, division of the sample, and length of market responses.