Negative Earnings Surprises (negative + earning_surprise)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Market Reactions to Warnings of Negative Earnings Surprises: Further Evidence

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS FINANCE & ACCOUNTING, Issue 7-8 2008
Weihong Xu
Abstract:, This study examines two plausible explanations for Kasznik and Lev's (1995) counterintuitive finding that warning firms are subject to more negative market returns than no-warning firms. Namely, are the more negative market reactions to warning firms due to their poorer future earnings performance or due to investor overreaction? I find that, compared with no-warning firms, warning firms experience more severe one-year-ahead earnings declines and these earnings declines can explain the stronger market returns to warning firms. However, my results do not support an investor overreaction explanation. The tests of subsequent abnormal returns of warning firms over various windows do not detect stock return reversals due to correction for overreaction. In addition, the greater revisions in analysts' forecasts for warning firms are found to enhance analyst accuracy rather than increase analyst pessimism. Collectively, my results suggest that the more negative market reactions to warning firms reflect investors' rational anticipation of more severe declines in future earnings for warning firms rather than investor overreaction. [source]


To What Extent Does the Financial Reporting Process Curb Earnings Surprise Games?

JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 5 2007
LAWRENCE D. BROWN
ABSTRACT Managers play earnings surprise games to avoid negative earnings surprises by managing earnings upward or by managing analysts' earnings expectations downward. We investigate the effectiveness of the financial reporting process at restraining earnings surprise games. Because the annual reporting process is subject to an independent audit and more rigorous expense recognition rules than interim reporting, it provides managers with fewer opportunities to manage earnings upward. We document that, relative to interim reporting, annual reporting reduces the likelihood of income-increasing earnings management and, to a lesser extent, of negative surprise avoidance, but increases the magnitude of downward expectations management. Our findings suggest that regulatory attempts to monitor corporations' internal checks and balances are likely to be more effective at curbing upward earnings management than at mitigating negative surprise avoidance. [source]


The Extreme Future Stock Returns Following I/B/E/S Earnings Surprises

JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 5 2006
JEFFREY T. DOYLE
ABSTRACT We investigate the stock returns subsequent to quarterly earnings surprises, where the benchmark for an earnings surprise is the consensus analyst forecast. By defining the surprise relative to an analyst forecast rather than a time-series model of expected earnings, we document returns subsequent to earnings announcements that are much larger, persist for much longer, and are more heavily concentrated in the long portion of the hedge portfolio than shown in previous studies. We show that our results hold after controlling for risk and previously documented anomalies, and are positive for every quarter between 1988 and 2000. Finally, we explore the financial results and information environment of firms with extreme earnings surprises and find that they tend to be "neglected" stocks with relatively high book-to-market ratios, low analyst coverage, and high analyst forecast dispersion. In the three subsequent years, firms with extreme positive earnings surprises tend to have persistent earnings surprises in the same direction, strong growth in cash flows and earnings, and large increases in analyst coverage, relative to firms with extreme negative earnings surprises. We also show that the returns to the earnings surprise strategy are highest in the quartile of firms where transaction costs are highest and institutional investor interest is lowest, consistent with the idea that market inefficiencies are more prevalent when frictions make it difficult for large, sophisticated investors to exploit the inefficiencies. [source]


The Effect of Regulation Fair Disclosure on Conference Calls: The Case of Earnings Surprises,

ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL STUDIES, Issue 6 2009
Bok Baik
Abstract While conference calls have been widely used as a communication tool between firms and investors, little research has examined the effect of this voluntary disclosure metric on analyst forecasts. In this paper, we examine whether firms use conference calls to guide down analysts' earnings forecasts, thereby avoiding negative earnings surprises before and after Regulation FD. Our findings show that firms hosting conference calls are more likely to guide analysts' forecasts downward and, as a result, they tend to successfully avoid negative earnings surprises in the pre Reg FD period. However, we do not find such relations in the post Reg FD period. We also find that the market reacts positively to firms hosting conference calls only in the post Reg FD period, consistent with the view that the market rewards a reduction in managers' opportunistic guidance to meet the analysts' earnings estimate. [source]