In this paper, I examine whether consistent quarterly earnings signals generate momentum and subsequent return reversals. Conditioning on growth consistency in quarterly earnings, I show that an unbroken earnings string creates a strong financial momentum that peaks at the end of the first three...

Employing a broad sample of US firms over the period 1962 to 2009, we provide evidence of a liquidity risk impact on the fundamental earnings-returns relation. Specifically, we document that current liquidity risk has a positive moderating effect on the relation between current returns and next...

We reexamine the time-series properties and determinants of the relation between aggregate earnings and returns (earnings response coefficient, ERC) employing return decompositions with longer historical data. We find that aggregate ERC is time-varying, above and beyond the evidence documented...

The Post-Earnings Announcement Drift (PEAD) anomaly refers to the tendency of stock prices to continue drifting in the same direction as earnings surprises well through the subsequent earnings announcements; ignoring the autocorrelations in extreme earnings surprises across adjacent quarters....

The relation between aggregate earnings and aggregate returns is complex and not fully understood. For example, in contrast to firm-level relations, prior literature finds aggregate earnings changes and aggregate stock returns are negatively related. This paper constructs new measures of...

In this paper, I empirically test the conservatism effect of Barberis, Shleifer and Vishny (1998). Conditioning on a shock to quarterly earnings, firms ranking in the top (bottom) earnings shock quintile exhibit substantial price momentum over the next three-month periods following the initial...

We investigate the change in the aggregate earnings-returns relation from negative to positive. We first identify a gradual structural break around the second quarter of 1991. We then find evidence of three contributing factors to the change in the relation. They are: i) an increase in the...

We show that a lack of investor trust affects the revision of cash flow expectations and delays the incorporation of accounting information into the stock price. To overcome investors' dependence on trust, managers can obtain external certification—either through credit ratings or by employing...

Financial crises are typically marked by substantial increases in ambiguity where prices appear to decouple from fundamentals. Consistent with ambiguity-based asset pricing theories, we find that ambiguity concerns are more severe for firms with higher pre-crisis earnings volatility, causing...

Prior studies show that investor learning about earnings-based return predictors from academic research erodes return predictability. However, the signaling power of “bottom-line” earnings has declined over time, which complicates assessments of investor learning about profitability signals...