In this paper, we first document evidence of underreaction to management forecast news. We then hypothesize that the credibility of the forecast influences the magnitude of this underreaction. Relying on evidence that more credible forecasts are associated with a larger reaction in the short window around the management forecasts and a smaller postmanagement forecast drift in returns, we show that the magnitude of the underreaction is smaller for firms that provide more credible forecasts. Our paper contributes to the literature by providing out-of-sample evidence of the drift in returns documented in the post-earnings-announcement drift literature, with the credibility of the news being one explanation for the phenomenon.
JEL Classification: G12; G14; G30; M41
Keywords: Market efficiency; Credibility; Voluntary disclosure
March 2012We thank Brian Bushee, Gavin Cassar, Tarun Chordia, Patty Dechow (the editor), Vicki Dickinson, S.P. Kothari, Ryan LaFond, Kin Lo, Rick Mendenhall, Ray Pfeiffer, Scott Richardson, Jonathan Rogers, Tjomme Rusticus, Praveen Sinha, Siew Hong Teoh, Joseph Weber, an anonymous referee, and workshop participants at Barclays Global Investors, University of California at Berkeley, Bristol University, Lancaster University, London Business School, University of Mannheim, University of Minnesota, MIT, Tilburg University, 2006 FEA conference, 2007 FARS Midyear Meeting, 2007 Maryland Finance Symposium, 2007 WFA conference, and 2007 AAA conference for their helpful comments. We appreciate financial support from the London Business School, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and the Wharton School. Jeffrey Ng and Rodrigo Verdi are also grateful for financial support from the Deloitte & Touche Foundation.Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=930697 1
INTRODUCTIONThis paper studies whether the credibility of a disclosure is a determinant of the market underreaction to the news conveyed by the disclosure. Since Ball and Brown (1968), several papers have documented a market underreaction to news such as earnings announcements (Fama 1998). We hypothesize that news credibility can provide an explanation for underreaction to news. To test this hypothesis, we focus on management forecast news because prior research has highlighted that the voluntary and non-audited nature of management forecasts leads to concerns about the credibility of these forecasts (e.g., Jennings 1987;Skinner 1994; Hutton, Miller, and Skinner 2003;Rogers and Stocken 2005;Hutton and Stocken 2009). Thus, management forecasts provide a powerful setting to explore the role of credibility in explaining the underreaction to news.Our study relies on the idea that investors' reaction to forecast news is a function of the new information about future cash flows and the credibility of the forecast (Jennings 1987). Thus we argue that investors are more likely to delay their reaction to less credible news until more credible information (e.g., announcement of actual earnings) appear to support the forecast. If that is ...