We explore whether the association between accruals and future returns documented by Sloan (1996) is due to fixation by naive investors on the total amount of reported earnings without regard for the relative magnitude of the accrual and cash flow components. Contrary to the predictions of the...

We examine the disclosure strategies managers follow when they quot;preannouncequot; quarterly earnings shortly before formal earnings announcements. We document that managers with bad news release essentially all of their news at the preannouncement date, while managers with good news only...

When the U.S. corporate income tax rate was increased from 34 to 35 percent in August 1993, corporations had to remeasure their deferred tax assets and liabilities and include the net adjustment in their 1993 third-quarter earnings. This study shows that, at the time of the earnings...

We examine the role of January in the relation between expected losses/profits and future stock returns. We predict and find that the relation between expected losses/profits and future returns reverses from the usual positive relation in non-January months to a negative one in January. The...

We examine how analysts' incentives to build their reputation through accurate forecasting changes the relative association between analyst recommendations and rigorous valuation models versus valuation heuristics. Controlling for the firm-specific difficulty of valuation, we show that the...

We quantify the relative importance of earnings announcements in providing new information to the share market, using the r-squared in a regression of securities' calendar year returns on their four quarterly earnings announcement window returns. The r-squared, which averages approximately five...

We show that abnormal returns to analysts' recommendations stem from both the ratings levels assigned as well as the changes in those ratings. Conditional on the ratings change, buy and strong buy recommendations have greater returns than do holds, sells, and strong sells. Conditional on the...

Several recent papers assume that private information (PIN), proposed by Easley, Hvidkjaer and O'Hara (2002, 2004), is a determinant of stock returns. We replicate Easley, Hvidkjaer and O'Hara (2002) and show that while PIN does predict future returns in the sample they analyze, the effect is...

Bayesian theory predicts an increase in market participants' reliance on reported current earnings to revise their expectations of future earnings when the uncertainty in future earnings is higher. Prior studies focus on price reactions and find negative associations between measures of earnings...

This paper reveals that in addition to fundamental factors, the 52-week high price and recent investor sentiment play an important role in analysts' target price formation. Analysts' forecasts of short-term earnings and long-term earnings growth are shown to be important explanatory variables...