An important goal of accounting research is to provide evidence that improves the analysis of financial statements for predicting future profitability. Research (Sloan 1996; Xie 2001) has found that (1) the persistence of earnings performance depends on the proportions of the cash and accrual...

We document post-event negative abnormal returns to the (implicit) sell recommendations of a group of fundamental analysts. We also find statistically significant deterioration in the financial performance of the identified firms in the year after the recommendations. Together the results are...

A long history of economic theory suggests that industry membership plays an important role in explaining a firm's financial performance. In this paper we investigate the usefulness of industry benchmarks and industry level analysis for predicting a firm's future profitability and growth....

Prior research provides evidence that a higher proportion of accrued relative to cash earnings is associated with lower earnings performance in the subsequent fiscal year. The result has been widely interpreted as indicative of higher levels of operating accruals relative to cash flows...

Prior research reveals that the accrual component of profitability is less persistent than the cash flow component, and that investors fail to fully appreciate their differing implications for future profitability (Sloan 1996). However, accruals are a component of growth in net operating assets...

Most proponents of using profit margins in a forecasting model suggest that unusual items be removed from income to create a quot;corequot; profit margin. We investigate the appropriateness of this assumption over short and long horizons. Specifically, we explore the association between profit...

We document post-event negative abnormal returns to the (implicit) sell recommendations of a group of fundamental analysts. We also find statistically significant deterioration in the financial performance of the identified firms in the year after the recommendations. Together the results are...