دانلود رایگان مقاله پیش بینی تحلیل جریان نقدی و قیمت گذاری اقلام تعهدی

Abstract

This paper investigates howanalyst cash flow forecasts affect investors’ valuation of accounting accruals. Wefind that the strength of the accrual anomaly documented in Sloan (1996) is weaker for firms with analyst cash flow forecasts, after controlling for idiosyncratic risk, transaction costs and firm characteristics associated with the issuance of cash flow forecasts. We further show that this reduction in mispricing of accounting accruals is at least partially attributed to the improved ability of investors to price earnings manipulations imbedded in accruals. We investigate several non-mutually exclusive alternative explanations for this improvement in investors’ ability and demonstrate that the increased investor attention and the improved accuracy of analyst earnings forecasts both contribute to the mitigation of the accrual anomaly.

5. Conclusions

This paper examines how analyst cash flow forecasts affect the accrual anomaly. We predict and find that the accrual strategy return is lower for firms with analyst cash flow forecasts. This result holds after we control for idiosyncratic volatility, transaction costs and firm characteristics associated with the issuance of analyst cash flow forecasts. We further show that the mitigation of the accrual anomaly with analyst cash flow forecasts is not completely attributed to reduced earnings manipulations in firms with analyst cash flow forecasts (as suggested in previous literature), but is at least partially attributed to the improved ability of investors to price earnings manipulation. Finally, we consider three possible explanations for the improved ability of investors to see through earnings manipulations for firms with cash flow forecasts: investor attention, the accuracy of analyst forecasts, and voluntary disclosures. We find that both investor attention and the accuracy of analyst earnings forecasts help to improve investors' ability to correctly price earnings manipulations. Our work takes the field one step closer to a better understanding of the relation between analyst cash flow forecasts and the accrual anomaly.