• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.195-213
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• 2019

This paper investigates the effects of firms' foreign market focus on the optimistic bias of analysts' earnings forecasts. Based on a sample of 852 U.S. manufacturing firms between 1994 and 2015, our empirical results suggest that higher growth of foreign market focus is associated with greater levels of analysts' forecast optimism. Drawing on the CEO career horizon and the upper echelon theory literature, we find evidence that CEOs' career horizon and functional background as a CFO moderates the relationship between the growth rate of foreign market focus and analysts' forecast optimism. This shows that while financial analysts perceive internationalization strategies as signaling growth potential, such perception can vary depending on CEOs' individual characteristics.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.8 no.11
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• pp.363-372
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• 2017

This study analyzed how management earnings forecasts would have an effect on future earnings quality. The analysis period of study was from 2003 till 2009 (ofrom 2004 till 2011) based on variables of interest (dependent variables) and the annual data from a total of 475 companies that publicly announced manager's operating earnings forecasts among securities listing companies were used for analysis. As a result, first, it appeared that the more optimistic the manager's earnings forecasts were for the current term, the lower the future earnings quality was. Second, it was found that the lower the accuracy of the manager's earnings forecasts was for the current term, the lower the future earnings quality was. Such findings suggest that management earnings forecasts will be used for determining future earnings quality.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.1557-1567
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• 2014

In this paper, I propose a general hypothesis that after the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOA) financial statements convey more accurate and reliable corporate information to investors who in turn reflect such improvements in stock prices and test four practical hypotheses that simultaneously feature the degree of information asymmetry, forecast bias, and investor reaction to biased earnings information. The empirical results unanimously suggest that the post-SOA investors take advantage of the improvement in informational efficiency and accuracy and actively adjust for analyst forecast bias in earnings forecasts. The SOA indeed appears to achieve its primary goal of investor protection.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.41-48
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• 2019

Purpose - This study investigates whether financial analysts consider the intangible investment implicit in selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenditures to forecast firms' future earnings. Research design, data, and methodology - Using 52,609 U.S. firm-year observations spanning 1984-2016, this study examines the association between the Intangible investment implicit in SG&A expenditures and properties of analysts' earnings forecasts. To estimate the Intangible investment of SG&A, I decompose SG&A excluding R&D and advertising expenditures into maintenance and investment components following Enache and Srivastava (2017). Results - The main results show that analysts' earnings forecast errors and dispersion in analysts' forecasts increase with the intangible investment derived from SG&A because the investment component of SG&A affects future earnings and the uncertainty of those earnings. However, these results are weakened in the wholesale and retail industries where firms have a higher level of investment component of SG&A. I attribute the weaker results to low R&D expenditures in those industries. Conclusion - This study indicates that financial analysts incorporate the intangible investment of SG&A into their earnings forecasts differently across firms and industries. Furthermore, this study supports the argument for the separate reporting of the investment nature of SG&A from other operating expenses such as maintenance nature of SG&A.

• East Asian Journal of Business Economics (EAJBE)
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.17-25
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• 2019

Purpose - The international market provides a growth momentum for firms by allowing them to tap into a new market. Given information asymmetry between firms and financial analysts, firms' international growth can be perceived as a higher business prospect by analysts. This paper explores the possibility of analysts' over-emphasis on foreign income growth in predicting earnings. Research design, data, and methodology - We utilize a sample of U.S. firms to test the relationship between foreign income growth and analysts' forecast optimism. Our sample of publicly listed and traded U.S. firms between 1976 and 2016 consists of 6,120 firm-year observations. Results - Empirical analyses show that firms that show higher international growth in earnings are likely to face forecast inaccuracy by financial analysts. From the perspective of firms, their earnings are less than what analysts forecasted. Contrary to our prediction on the moderating effect of innovative capabilities, optimistic bias is not intensified - rather, it is reduced - when firms have higher innovative capabilities. Conclusions - Our results imply that while analysts favor firms with higher international growth, innovative capability on the international market places additional risks to firms' operation.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.45-54
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• 2019

This study examines whether auditors restrain the analysts' opportunistic behavior as reviewing the companies' interim reports. Analysts' forecasts show a walkdown pattern in which their optimism has decreased as the earnings announcement date has approached. At the beginning of the year, there is a lack of high-quality benchmark information that enables information users to judge the accuracy of analyst's earnings forecasts. Thus, early in the year, analysts are highly inspired to disseminate optimistic forecasts in order to gain manager's favor. In this study, we examine adequate benchmarks prevent analysts from disclosing optimistically biased forecasts. We conjecture that auditors' efforts might mitigate analysts' walkdown pattern. To test this hypothesis, we use data from Korea, where it is mandatory to disclose auditor's review hours. We find that the analyst forecast's walkdown decreases with the ratio as well as the number of audit hours. It implies that an auditor's effort in reviewing interim financial information has a monitoring function that reduces analysts' opportunistic optimism at the beginning of the year. We conjecture that the tendency will be more pronounced when BIG4 auditors review the interim reports. Consistent with the prediction, BIG4 auditors' interim review effort is more effective in suppressing the analysts' walkdown.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.12
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• pp.137-160
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• 2003

The association between accounting earnings and the stock price of an entity is the subject that has been most heavily researched during the past 25 years in accounting literature. Researcher's common finding is that there are positive relationships between accounting earnings and stock prices. However, the explanatory power of accounting earnings which was measured by $R^2$ of regression functions used was rather low. To be connected with these low results, The prior studies propose that there will be additional information, errors in variables. This study investigates empirically determinants of earnings response coefficients(ERCs), which measure the correlation between earnings and stock prices, using earnings level / change, as the dependent variable in the return/earnings regression. Specifically, the thesis tests whether the factors such as earnings persistence, growth, systematic risk, image, information asymmetry and firm size. specially, the determinable variables of ERC are explained in detail. The image / information asymmetry variables are selected to be connected with additional information stand point, The debt / growth variables are selected to be connected with errors in variables. In this study, The sample of firms, listed in Korean Stock Exchange was drawn from the KIS-DATA and was required to meet the following criteria: (1) Annual accounting earnings were available over the 1986-1999 period on the KIS-FAS to allow computation of variables parameter; (2) sufficient return data for estimation of market model parameters were available on the KIS-SMAT month returns: (3) each firm had a fiscal year ending in December throughout the study period. Implementation of these criteria yielded a sample of 1,141 firm-year observation over the 10-year(1990-1999) period. A conventional regression specification would use stock returns(abnormal returns) as a dependent variable and accounting earnings(unexpected earnings) changes interacted with other factors as independent variables. In this study, I examined the relation between other factors and the RRC by using reverse regression. For an empirical test, eight hypotheses(including six lower-hypotheses) were tested. The results of the performed empirical analysis can be summarized as follows; The first, The relationship between persistence of earnings and ERC have significance of each by itself, this result accord with one of the prior studies. The second, The relationship between growth and ERC have not significance. The third, The relationship between image and ERC have significance of each by itself, but a forecast code doesn't present. This fact shows that image cost does not effect on market management share, is used to prevent market occupancy decrease. The fourth, The relationship between information asymmetry variable and ERC have significance of each by. The fifth, The relationship between systematic risk$(\beta)$ and ERC have not significance. The sixth, The relationship between debt ratio and ERC have significance of each by itself, but a forecast code doesn't present. This fact is judged that it is due to the effect of financial leverage effect and a tendency of interest.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.151-165
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• 2017

This study investigates the effect of revenue recognition by percentage of completion method on financial analysts' earnings forecasting information in order industry. Specifically, we examines how the analysts' earnings forecast errors and biases differ according to whether or not to report the unbilled revenue account balance and the level of unbilled revenue account balance. The sample consists of 453 firm-years listed in Korea Stock Exchange during the period from 2010 to 2014 since the information on unbilled revenue accounts can be obtained after the adoption of K-IFRS. The results are as follows. First, we find that the firms with unbilled revenue account balances have lower analysts' earnings forecast accuracy than the firms who do not report unbilled revue account balances. In addition, we find that the accuracy of analysts' earnings forecasts decreases as the amount of unbilled revenue increases. Unbilled revenue account balances occur when the revenue recognition of the contractor is faster than the client. There is a possibility that managerial discretionary judgment and estimation may intervene when the contractor calculates the progress rate. The difference between the actual progress of the construction and the progress recognized by the company lowers the predictive value of financial statements. Our results suggest that the analysts' earnings forecasts may be more difficult for the firms that report unbilled revenue balances as applying the revenue recognition method based on the progress criteria. Second, we find that the firms reporting unbilled revenue account balances tend to have higher the optimistic biases in analysts' earnings forecast than the firms who do not report unbilled revenue account balances. And we find that the analysts' earnings forecast biases are increases as the amount of unbilled revenue increases. This study suggests an effort to reduce the arbitrary adjustment and estimation in the measurement of the progress as well as the introduction of the progress measurement method which can reflect the actual progress. Investors are encouraged to invest and analyze the characteristics of the order-based industry accounting standards. In addition, the results of this study empower the accounting transparency enhancement plan for order industry proposed by the policy authorities.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.280-286
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• 2019

This study first examines whether the matching principle reduces information asymmetry and verifies the effect on earnings sustainability and information asymmetry. In the presence of information asymmetry between managers and information users, managers can reduce information asymmetry by increasing the quality of earnings. Information asymmetry is measured by the financial analysts' earnings forecast variance. When we look at the results of previous studies, verify whether information asymmetry decreases as the response to the revenue cost increases and whether negative relationship between profit persistence and information asymmetry appears when the response to the revenue cost is high. As a result, firms with high revenue cost response showed a decrease in information asymmetry. The persistence of the earningss from the high earnings-cost response shows that the analysts' earnings forecast dispersion decreases. This means that the better the response to the revenue cost, the better the quality of the earnings and the less the information risk about the uncertainty of the enterprise. This study is different from the previous studies in that it analyzed whether the persistence of the earnings that responded to the high revenue cost reduces the information asymmetry. The results of this study suggest that managers can reduce the information asymmetry by carrying out appropriate revenue - cost responses, which provides important implications for stakeholders who use accounting earnings information.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2020

Stock price multiple is one of the most well-known equity valuation technique used to forecast equity price. It measures by multiplying "the ratio of stock price to a value driver" by a value driver. The value driver can be earning per share (EPS), sales or other financial measurements. The objective of price multiple technique is to evaluate the value of assets and compare how similar assets are priced in the market. Although stock price multiple technique is common in financial filed, studies on the application of the technique in Thailand is still limited. The present study is conducted to serve three major objectives. The first objective is to apply the technique to measure value of firms in banking sector in the Stock Exchange of Thailand. The second objective is to develop composite price multiple index to forecast equity prices. The third objective is to compare valuation accuracy of different value drivers of price multiple (i.e. EPS, Earnings Growth, Earnings Before Interest Taxes Depreciation and Amortization, Sales, Book Value and Composite Index) in forecasting equity prices. Results indicated that EPS is the most accurate value drivers of price multiple used to forecast equity price of firms in baking sector.