We consider stock markets in 20 countries to investigate whether the accrual anomaly (Sloan 1996), characterized by U.S. stock prices overweighting the role of accrual persistence, is a local manifestation of a global phenomenon. We explore whether the occurrence of the anomaly is related to...

We examine several explanations drawn from prior academic research and current popular press anecdotes for the unprecedented level of underpricing in Internet IPOs. Our sample consists of 342 Internet firms that went public between 1988 and 1999 and a matched sample of 249 non-Internet IPOs. The...

Claims have often been made that the quality of the online customer experience in terms of web site ease of use, selection of goods offered, quality of customer service, the effectiveness of virtual community building, and site personalization are crucial to the success of e-commerce firms. If...

Sloan (1996) and several follow up papers show that the stock market behaves as though it cannot understand the implications of accruals for future earnings. We propose and find evidence consistent with the hypothesis that risk-averse arbitrageurs are unable to eliminate accrual related...

A number of recent studies assume market efficiency and hence interpret an association between stock returns and leading indicators as evidence of the contribution of such indicators to future earnings. We explicitly examine (i) whether one leading indicator - order backlog - has predictive...

Although leading indicators are becoming increasingly important for equity valuation, disclosures of such indicators suffer from the absence of GAAP related guidance on content and presentation. We explicitly examine (i) whether one leading indicator - order backlog - predicts future earnings,...

This paper studies the relationship between civil war and the value of firms in a poor, resource abundant country using microeconomic data for Angola. We focus on diamond mining firms and conduct an event study on the sudden end of the conflict, marked by the death of the rebel movement leader...

We show that the accrual anomaly documented by Sloan (1996) is concentrated in firms with high idiosyncratic stock return volatility making it risky for risk-averse arbitrageurs to take positions in stocks with extreme accruals. Moreover, the accrual anomaly is found in low price and low volume...