Short term market reaction to earnings restatements: value stocks vis-a-vis glamour stocks.
Xu, Tan ; Li, Diane ; Jin, John Jongdae 等
INTRODUCTION
It has long been reported that value (or contrarian) strategies
outperform the market since Graham and Dodd (1934), which is counter
evidence to the efficient market hypothesis. This strategy calls for
buying value stocks and selling glamour stocks. The value stocks are
under-priced stocks relative to their intrinsic value indicators such as
book value, earnings, cash flows, growth rate, while glamour stocks are
over-price stocks relative to their intrinsic value indicators (E.g.,
Lakonishok et al., 1994).
Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain why the return
differential between value stocks and glamour stocks persists so long.
For examples, Fama and French (1992, 1993, 1995, 1996) argue that value
stocks are judged by the market to have poor earnings prospect and
higher risks and, thus, are selling at lower prices relative to their
book value (i.e., high BM ratio), while the opposite applies to glamour
stocks. In one word, value stocks have higher expected returns because
they are riskier than glamour stocks. But they fail to provide
sufficient explanations for the return differential.
Lakonishok et al. (1994) argue that the return differential is
caused by investors' naive extrapolation of the past sales or
earnings growth of a firm into the future: some investors tend to get
overly excited about stocks doing very well in the past, usually glamour
stocks, and buy them up, while they oversell stocks doing very bad in
the past, usually value stocks. Consequently, glamour stocks are
overpriced while value stocks are under priced. Thus, when stock prices
finally return to the fundamentals in the long horizon, glamour stocks
will have lower return than the value stocks. They also argue that the
return differential between glamour stocks and value stocks may be due
to the career concerns of portfolio managers: i.e., glamour stocks have
lower career risk to portfolio managers than value stocks do. Since
glamour stocks appear to be prudent investments and hence easy to
justify to sponsors, many portfolio managers tilt toward glamour stocks.
Conversely, most value stocks have warts and, if they blow up, the
portfolio managers will look foolish since they should have known that
the value stocks had problems. Thus, portfolio managers stay away from
value stocks. (See Haugen (1999)) To test this naive extrapolation
hypothesis, Lakonishok et al. (1997) form portfolios of glamour stocks
and value stocks each year during 1971 through 1993 and examine the
portfolio returns around the earnings announcement days in the
post-formation period. They find that the return differentials around
the earnings announcement account for approximately 25 to 30 percent of
the annual return differentials between value stocks and glamour stocks
in the first two to three years following portfolio formation. This may
indicate that positive returns of value stocks are from their positive
earnings surprises, while negative returns of glamour stocks are from
their negative earnings surprises. They also find that the return
differential between value stocks and glamour stocks are smaller in
large stocks than in small stocks, consistent with the notion that large
stocks about which more information is available are less susceptible to
mis-pricing than small stocks.
Lo and MacKinly (1990) and Kothari et al. (1995) suggest that the
return differential may be due to research design induced biases. Amihud
and Mendelson (1986) suggest the return differential may be due to
market frictions.
Dechow and Sloan (1997) finds no systematic evidence that stock
prices reflect investors' naive extrapolation of past growth in
earnings and sales. Instead, they find half of the returns to contrarian
strategies can be explained by investors' naive reliance on
analysts' growth forecasts. In sum, there is not a consensus or the
best theory on explanations for the return differentials between value
stocks and glamour stocks, yet.
As Xu et. al. (2006) suggest, earnings restatements due to
accounting irregularities may increase the uncertainty of the reporting
entity because they usually cause class action lawsuits, management
shuffle, restructuring, and even bankruptcy. And earnings restatements
may impair the information quality of the reporting entity because
restating firm's information may not be as reliable to investment
public as it used to be prior to the earnings restatement. These higher
uncertainty and lower information quality due to earnings restatements
increase the risk premium and stock return volatility of the restating
firms (See Aboody (2005), Francis (2005), and Li (2005)). Since the
magnitude of changes in uncertainty and information quality due to
earnings restatements may vary across firms with different firm
characteristics, especially between value firms and glamour firms, the
market may react to earnings restatements of value firms differently
than those of glamour firms.
Thus, it is a valuable research to examine short-term stock price
responses to earnings restatements due to accounting irregularities of
value firms vis a vis glamour firms1 as a way of addressing the issue of
the return differentials between value firms and glamour firms, which is
the purpose of this study.
It is hypothesized that prices of value stocks drop more than those
of glamour stocks at the announcement of earnings restatements, if other
things being equal. Empirical results of this study show that there are
significantly negative Cumulative Abnormal Returns (CAR) over (-1, +1)
window and (-5, +5) window surrounding the announcement of earnings
restatements. And the short-term impact of earnings restatement
announcements on stock prices seems to fade away by the day 1 after the
announcement. The results also suggest that CAR do not vary with
value/glamour identifiers such as BM, CP, and GS. In order words, CAR of
value firms are not significantly different from those of glamour firms
around the announcement of earnings restatements.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Development of
a testable hypothesis is discussed in the next section that is followed
by selection of sample firms and their data. Methodology and measurement
of variables are discussed in the third section. And discussions on the
empirical tests and their results are followed. Conclusions are
addressed in the final section.
HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT
Value firms usually report higher actual earnings than their
expected earnings at the initial announcement of actual earnings
immediately prior to the earnings restatement, while glamour firms
report lower actual earnings than their expected earnings possibly due
to extrapolation of the past trend by rational but naive investment
public. However, both value firms and glamour firms report lower
restated earnings than their initial actual earnings at the announcement
date. Thus, investment public would realize that upward price
adjustments of value stocks at the initial actual earnings announcement
was unwarranted and hence should make downward price adjustments with
earnings restatements. They would also realize that downward price
adjustments to glamour stocks at the initial actual earnings
announcements was not enough and hence should make further downward
price adjustments with earnings restatements. If investment public
perceives a change from a negative belief on a firm value to a more
negative belief (Glamour stocks) less strongly than it does a change
from a positive belief to a negative belief (Value stocks), market would
drop the price of value stocks more than that of glamour stocks at the
announcement of earnings restatements. Another way to explain the
differential market reactions to earnings restatements of value firms
versus glamour firms would be as follows. For a risk averse investor
whose utility function increasingly decreases with a loss and
decreasingly increase with a gain, a unit of value loss due to stock
price decline from lower investment value point would be more painful
than that from a higher investment value point. And hence the market
with full of risk averse investors would react to a unit of value loss
due to stock price decline from lower investment value point more
significantly than that from a higher investment value point. Since
investment in value stocks, under-priced stocks, do usually have lower
value than investment in glamour stocks, over-priced stocks, do,
negative earnings surprises due to accounting irregularities would
decrease value stock prices more than glamour stock prices. Another
plausible reasoning for the differential market reactions to earnings
restatements of value stocks versus glamour stocks would be as follows.
Since value stocks which have poor operational performances tend to have
much slimmer margin of viability and hence closer to falling into
bankruptcy than glamour stocks which have good operational performances
do, the market would penalize the bad news about value stocks more
severely than the same bad news about glamour stocks. Thus, value stock
prices would drop more than glamour stock prices at the announcement of
earnings restatements due to accounting irregularities. If other things
being equal, a testable hypothesis herefrom would be
Hypothesis: Ceteris Paribus, prices of value stocks drop more than
those of glamour stocks at the announcement of earnings restatements.
This hypothesis may appear to be inconsistent with previous
findings on contrarian investment theory, suggesting that value stocks
fall less after negative earnings surprises relative to glamour stock,
while value stocks rise more after positive earnings surprises relative
to glamour stocks. These are rational reactions of the capital market to
earnings surprises for the following reasons. First, negative earnings
surprises of glamour stocks are more surprising to the market than those
of value stocks are, while positive earnings surprises of value stocks
are more surprising than those of glamour stocks are. Second, the market
reacts to the more surprising information in larger magnitude than to
the less surprising information. Extending this reasoning to earnings
restatements due to accounting irregularities, negative information
(downward earnings restatements due to accounting irregularities) about
value stocks which performed better than expected with initial actual
earnings announcements is more alarming to the market than the same
information about glamour stocks which performed worse than expected.
Thus, value stocks fall more than glamour stocks do with earnings
restatements due to accounting irregularities.
SAMPLE DESCRIPTIONS
A list of earnings restatements due to accounting irregularities
announced during January 1997 through December 2002 is obtained from
General Accounting Office (GAO). According to GAO's (2002) report,
it is the most comprehensive sample during that period and contains 919
earnings restatements announced by 845 public companies. The accounting
and stock returns data are drawn from COMPUSTAT and CRSP, respectively.
The sample period almost covers the stock market run-up during the late
1990s and its collapse after March 2000. It is the period when the
number and magnitude of earnings restatement surge to historic high,
providing us a large number of observations. In this period, the public
concern on corporate governance grew, leading to the passage of
Sarbanes-Oxley Act in July 2002. We exclude earnings restatements
announced by American Depository Receipts (ADRs) firms because they are
subject to different supervisory requirements.
Comparisons between characteristics of the restating firms and
those of all COMPUSTAT firms are presented in Table 1. To measure the
statistical significance of the difference between restating firms and
all firms, a nonparametric test called Wilcoxon test was conducted
because the test avoids the problems caused by skewness and outliers.
Since earnings restatements are unevenly distributed across industries
(Beasley et al., 2000) and the average size, Book to Market (BM) ratio,
and leverage vary from industry to industry, it might be more meaningful
to use the industry adjusted indicators. Industry-adjusted variables are
calculated by subtracting the industry median value from the raw value
of the variables. We identify companies in the same industry by matching
their 4-digit historical SIC codes in the fiscal year when earnings
restatement was announced. The reason to use the historical SIC code
rather than the current SIC code is that some firms might change their
industry after the sample period, making current SIC code an imprecise proxy for industry sector in the sample period. The earlier the event
day, the more severe the problem is.
Table 1 show that the raw BM ratios of restating firms are lower
than those of all firms in 5 out of 6 sample years (1997, 1998, 1999,
2001, & 2002) and the entire sample period. But the differences are
not statistically significant in any year. The industry adjusted-BM
ratios of restating firms, however, are higher than the industry means
in all 6 testing years. And the differences are statistically
significant in 3 out of 6 sample years (1999, 2000, & 2002) and the
whole sample period. This discrepancy may suggest that restating firms
concentrate in industries with more growth opportunities (the lower BM
ratio than the overall) but they have less growth opportunities or are
considered riskier than their peers (higher BM ratios than the industry
mean).
Restating firms are larger in size: the mean market value of the
restating firms is significantly larger than that of all COMPUSTAT firms
in 5 out of 6 sample years (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, & 2002) and the
whole sample period. Our result is different from the previous results
suggesting that restating firms concentrate in small firms (e.g.,
Beasley et al., 2000). This discrepancy might be due to a significant
increase in the number of large restating firms during the sample
period. The industry-adjusted market value of the restating firms are
significantly higher than zero in 5 out of 6 sample years (1998, 1999,
2000, 2001, & 2002) and the whole sample period, indicating that
restating firms are larger than their peers in the same industry.
Restating firms also have a lower leverage in terms of the ratio of
total debt to total assets but the difference is significant in year
1997 and for the whole sample period, only, indicating restating firms
have lower leverage ratios than all COMPUSTAT firms. And the
industry-adjusted leverage is significantly higher than zero in 5 out of
6 years (1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, & 2001) and the whole sample
period, indicating that restating firms do have higher leverage ratios
than the industry average.
Some companies restated the same financial statement more than
once, making the second announcement less informative. To reduce this
noise, only the first announcement in the sample is kept if a company
announces restatement more than once within the same fiscal year. To
isolate the effect of earnings restatement from other factors, companies
that announce earnings figure or guidance, or bankruptcy over the (-5,
5) event-date window are excluded. The information on earnings or
earnings guidance announcement and bankruptcy announcement is collected
from the U.S. news in the Factiva database around the event day of each
firm. Stocks selling below one dollar (so-called penny stocks) before
earnings restatement are excluded because they have wide bid-ask
spreads, high commissions, low liquidity (Conrad and Kaul, 1993) and
higher delisting risks. After these procedures, the final sample
includes 542 restating firms with 919 earnings restatements due to
accounting irregularities.
To examine the effect of mergers and acquisitions of sample firms
on their earnings restatements and hence stock returns, reasons for
restatements are classified and presented in Table 2. There are only 55
earnings restatements due to mergers and acquisitions out of total 919
earnings restatements, which account for 6 %. And hence mergers and
acquisitions are not a major cause of earnings restatements.
METHODOLOGY AND MEASUREMENT OF VARIABLES
Abnormal returns or cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) around the
announcement of earnings restatement are estimated to measure the stock
price reaction to restatement announcements. Corhay and Rad (1996) show
that since stock returns series generally exhibit time-varying
volatility, a market model accounting for generalized autoregressive
conditional heteroskedastic (GARCH) effects produces more efficient
estimators of abnormal returns than a market model estimated using the
ordinary least squares (OLS) method. Thus, we used the market model
accounting for generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic
(GARCH (1, 1)) technique to estimate the abnormal returns during the
(-7, +7) event day windows. The model parameters are estimated using the
data from 250 to 50 days before the earnings restatement announcement.
CAR is the sum of the abnormal returns during the event window.
Like Lakonishok et al.'s (1994), we use the book-to-market
(BM) ratio, the cash flow-to-market value (CP) ratio, and the past sales
growth (GS) as proxies for the glamour/value characteristics. Glamour
stocks are usually stocks with low BM, low CP, and/or high GS, whereas
value stocks are usually stocks with high BM, high CP, and/or low GS.
In the univariate test, we divided the sample stocks into five
categories by their glamour/value characteristics and compare their
average abnormal returns upon restatement announcements. To divide the
sample stocks into five categories, a universe of stocks are sorted in
ascending order into five deciles at the end of each year by a proxy for
the glamour/value characteristics mentioned earlier; we then fit the
sample stocks into the five deciles by the proxy. Our universe of stocks
consists of all the stocks listed on the NYSE, ASE, and NASDAQ, except
for real estate investment trusts (REITs), ADRs, closed-end funds, unit
investment, and trusts.
To rank the stocks by the past sales growth, we first calculate the
sales growth of all the stocks over the five years prior to the year
when the universe stocks were formed; we then calculate the weighted
average sales growth of each stock, giving the weight of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
to its growth in year -1, -2, -3, -4, -5, respectively. We then divide
the weighted average sales growth by the number of years that the stock
has continuous sale growth. The average past sales growth of new stocks
might be inaccurate because they have very few past sales figures. To
rule out the influence of new stocks, we require that all the stocks
should have sales during the two years prior to the formation year.
Stocks falling in decile 1 (5) in the year when earnings restatement is
announced have high (low) past sales growth and hence are glamour
(value) stocks. If the hypothesis holds, then the stocks in decile 1
should have lower negative CAR than those in declie 5 around the
announcement of earnings restatements.
Lakonishok et al. (1994) suggest a two-way classification is a
better method to identify value stocks and glamour stocks than a one-way
classification. Thus, we also use the combination of BM ratio and past
earnings/sales growth to identify the restating firm's
glamour/value stock characteristics. At the end of each year, the
universe stocks are independently sorted in ascending order into three
groups--(1) bottom 30 percent, (2) middle 40 percent, and (3) top 30
percent--by the raw BM ratio and GS, and then take intersections
resulting from the two classifications. Restating firms in the low
(high) BM high (low) GS group at the end of the year prior to the
earnings restatement are glamour (value) stocks. We also use the
combination of CP ratio and GS to identify value stocks and glamour
stocks.
It has been widely evidenced that there is a positive relationship
between earnings surprises and stock price changes and hence abnormal
stock returns; i.e., a negative earnings surprise (an excess of the
expected earnings over the actual earnings) decreases the stock prices
and hence stock returns, while a positive earnings surprise (an excess
of the actual earnings over the expected earnings) increases the stock
price. And the larger the earnings surprises, the larger stock price
changes and abnormal stock returns. (See Beaver et al. (1979))
The following multivariate regression model is estimated to control
for the effect of magnitude of earnings restatement on CAR.
[CAR.sub.it] = [alpha] + [[beta].sub.1] [MAG.sub.it] +
[[beta].sub.2] [BM.sub.it], + [[epsilon].sub.t] (1)
where [CAR.sub.it] denotes the cumulative abnormal return on firm i
over the (-1,1) window; [MAG.sub.it], the restatement magnitude of firm
'i' is the cumulative net change in the firm's net income
due to earnings restatement scaled by the shareholders' equity at
the end of the quarter prior to the restatement. [BM.sub.it] is the
book-to-market ratio. We do not add interactive term (the product of the
restatement magnitude and BM) because the correlation between these two
independent variables is insignificant. The next, we replaced the BM
ratio with the CP ratio and GS, respectively, as a proxy for the
glamour/value characteristics and redo the multivariate tests. Although
the inclusion of restatement magnitude can improve the explanatory power, it decreases the degree of freedom because there are only 202
observations for restatement magnitude data. Because firms restate financial results in different categories and tax data is not available
for some companies, only 202 observations have enough data to compute the restatement magnitude.
In order to control for the influence of MAG and other unknown
variables on CAR, we run a two step regression where error terms from
the following regression model are regressed over the value/glamour
identifiers such as BM and CP.
[CAR.sub.it] = [alpha] + [beta] [MAG.sub.it] + [[epsilon].sub.t]
(2)
where [CAR.sub.it] and [MAG.sub.it] are the same as those in
regression (1).
The regression model for the error terms from the equation (2) over
glamour/value stock identifiers would be as follow:
[RES.sub.it] = [alpha] + [[beta].sub.1] [BM.sub.it] +
[[epsilon].sub.t] (3)
[RES.sub.it] = [alpha] + [[beta].sub.1] [CP.sub.it] +
[[epsilon].sub.t] (3')
Where BM = the book to market value ratio,
CP = the cash flow to market value ratio.
EMPIRICAL RESULTS
To control for time-varying volatility of stock returns, a market
model adjusted for generalized autoregressive conditional
heteroskedastic (GARCH (1, 1)) technique is used to estimate abnormal
returns. Results from the model are presented in Table 3. The
GARCH-adjusted average CAR are -7.42 percent and -8.96 percent in (-1,
1) and (-5, 5) windows, respectively, both of which are statistically
significant. None of daily abnormal returns are statistically
significant from the day 2 after the announcement of restatements in
terms of the standardized cross-sectional (SCS) test (t-statistic) and
the generalized sign test (Z-statistic). In sum, the results in Table 2
suggest that there are significantly negative CAR around the
announcement of earnings restatements, consistent with previous studies
on association between earnings surprises and abnormal stock returns.
(See Beaver, Clarke, and Wright (1979)) And the short-term impact of
earnings restatement announcements on stock prices seems to fade away by
the day 1 after the announcement. Thus, it is reasonable to use CAR for
(-1, +1) window to examine differential market reactions to earnings
restatements of value stocks vs. glamour stocks.
To see if there is any difference in behavior of CAR between bull
market years (1997 to 1999) and bear market years (2000-2002), the GARCH
adjusted average CAR for testing periods of the bull market years are
computed and presented on Table 4, while the CAR of the bear market
years on Table 5. The GARCH-adjusted average CAR for the bull market
years are -6.92 percent and -7.78 percent in (-1, 1) and (-5, 5)
windows, respectively, both of which are statistically significant at 1
% level. The GARCH-adjusted average CAR for the bear market years are
-7.79 percent and -9.85 percent in (-1, 1) and (-5, 5) windows,
respectively, both of which are also statistically significant at 1 %
level. None of daily abnormal returns are statistically significant from
the day 2 after the announcement of restatements for both bull and bear
market years. In sum, the results presented in Table 4 for the bull
market years and Table 5 for the bear market years are consistent with
results in Table 3 for the entire sample years: i.e., there are
significantly negative CAR on the date of restatement announcements and
one day after.
Average CAR and restatement magnitude of five subgroups sorted by
BM, CP, and GS are presented in Panels A, B, C of Table 6, respectively.
Restating firms in all sub groups show negative MAG, indicating that
restated earnings are lowed than the initial actual earnings preceding
the restatement. They also show negative CAR, again. However, there are
no significantly different CAR between any two subgroups except the
difference between subgroups 1 & 3 sorted by BM and the difference
between subgroups 3 and 5 sorted by GS. This indicates that CAR may not
vary with any of value/glamour identifiers. These findings imply that
the capital market does not react to earnings restatements of value
firms differently than to those of glamour firms, inconsistent with the
hypothesis.
Average CAR and restatement magnitude of 3 subgroups sorted by the
two-way classification method are presented in Table 7. Those statistics
of subgroups sorted by BM and GS are presented in Panel A, while those
by CP and GS in Panel B of Table 7. The results in table 7 are very
similar to those in Table 6 and hence do not support the hypothesis that
the market reacts to earnings restatements of value firms more strongly
than to those of glamour firms. The results show negative MAG and CAR in
all subgroups, while CAR does not vary with any of value/glamour
characteristics. Except that there is a significantly different CAR
between subgroups 1 & 3 sorted by BM and GS at 10% level.
Results from multivariate regression model (1) using value/glamour
identifiers (Such as BM and CP) and MAG as independent variables are
presented in Table 8. The regression coefficients of BM and CP are
-0.005 and -0.01, respectively. But both of them are not statistically
significant and hence do not support the hypothesis.
Results from the two step regression are presented in Table 9. The
regression coefficients of BM and CP are -0.0071 (p-value = -1.62) and
-0.0875 (p-value = -0.86), respectively, both of which are not
statistically significant. Thus, these results also do not support the
hypothesis.
Again, to see if there is any structural difference between the
bull market years and the bear market years that cause different market
reactions to earnings restatements of value stocks vis a vis glamour
stocks, the multiple regression model (1), the two step regression
models (2), and (3) are estimated for the bull market years and the bear
market years, separately. Results from the multiple regression models
are presented in Table 10. The regression coefficients of glamour/value
proxies such as BM and CP for the bull market years presented in Panel A
& C of Table 10 are negative but not statistically significant,
while the regression coefficients of glamour/value proxies such as BM
and CP for the bear market years presented in Panel B & D of Table
10 are positive but not statistically significant, not supporting the
hypothesis.
Results from the two step regression model for the bull market
years are in Panel A of Table 11, while those for the bear market years
are in Panel B of Table 11. None of the regression coefficients of BM
and CP for both bull market years and bear market years are
statistically significant, not supporting the hypothesis that the market
reacts to earnings restatements of value firms more strongly than to
those of glamour firms.
In sum, results shown in Tables 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11
suggest that, in general, the restating firms experience stock price
declines around the announcement of earnings restatements but there is
no significant difference in this phenomena between value firms and
glamour firms, inconsistent with the hypothesis. These results are
robust across different measurement of variables. testing methods, and
markets (bull market and bear market).
CONCLUSIONS
This paper examines short-term stock price responses to earnings
restatements due to accounting irregularities of value firms vis a vis
glamour firms as a way of addressing the issue of the return
differentials between value firms and glamour firms. It was hypothesized
that, Ceteris Paribus, prices of value stocks drop more than those of
glamour stocks at the announcement of earnings restatements.
Empirical results of this study show that there are significantly
negative CAR over (-1, +1) window and (-5, +5) window surrounding the
announcement of earnings restatements, suggesting that market perceives
earning restatements due to accounting irregularities, negatively. These
results are consistent with deep discounts on stocks of companies
infringed by so-called stock option backdating scandals in a sense that
bad (good) news decrease (increase) the stock prices. Recently hundreds
of companies, many of which are high tech growth companies, are under
investigations for their misconducts on the date of granting stock
options. Those companies may intentionally change the day that the stock
options were granted to an earlier date when their stocks were trading
at lower prices, potentially allowing company executives to lock in
higher profits when they exercise their options. Thus, the stock prices
of those companies drop significantly with the release of the
information. The short-term impact of earnings restatement announcements
on stock prices seems to fade away by the day 2 after the announcement.
However, the results do not show that CAR (-1, +1) vary with any
value/glamour identifiers such as BM, CP, and GS, which do not support
the hypothesis that value stocks have higher negative CAR than glamour
stocks do with earnings restatements. This suggests that the market does
not perceive earnings restatements of value firms any differently than
those of glamour firms. These results are robust across different
measurement of variables, testing methods, and markets (bull market and
bear market).
REFERENCES
Aboody, D., J. Hughes, and J. Liu, 2005, Earnings quality, insider
trading, and cost of capital, Journal of Accounting Research vol. 43 No.
5, 651-673.
Amihud, D. and H. Mendelson, 1986, Asset pricing and the bid-ask
spread. Journal of Financial Economics 20, 223-249.
Ball, R., S. Kothari, and J. Shanken, 1995, Problems in measuring
portfolio performance: Application to contrarian investment strategies,
Journal of Financial Economics 38, 79-107.
Beasley, M., J. Carcello, D. Hermanson, and P. Lapides, 2000,
Fraudulent financial reporting: consideration of industry traits and
corporate governance mechanisms, Accounting Horizons 14 (4), 441-454.
Beaver, W., R. Clarke, and W. Wright, 1979, The association between
unsystematic security returns and the magnitude of earnings forecast
errors, Journal of Accounting Research 17, 316-340.
Conrad, Jennifer and Gautam Kaul, 1993, Long-term market
overreaction or biases in computed returns? Journal of Finance 48,
39-63.
Corhay, A. and A. Tourani Rad, Conditional heteroskedasticity
adjusted market model and an event study, The Quarterly Review of
Economics and Finance 36 (4), 520-538.
Dechow, P., and R. Sloan, 1997, Returns to contrarian investments:
test of the naive extrapolations hypothesis, Journal of Financial
Economics, 3-27.
Dreman, D., 1998. Contrarian Investment Strategies in the Next
Generation, Simon & Schuster, Inc..
Fama, Eugene and Kenneth French, 1992, The cross-section of
expected stock returns, Journal of Finance 47, 427-465.
Fama, Eugene and Kenneth French, 1993, Common risk factors in the
returns on stocks and bonds, Journal of Financial Economics 33, 3-56.
Fama, Eugene and Kenneth French, 1995, Size and book-to-market
factors in earnings and stock returns, Journal of Financial Economics
33, 3-56.
Fama, Eugene and Kenneth French, 1996, Multifactor explanation of
asset pricing anomalies, Journal of Finance 51, 55-84.
Francis, J. and M. Smith, 2005, A reexamination of persistence of
accruals and cashflows, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol 43 No. 3,
413-452.
General Accounting Office (GAO), 2002, Financial statement
restatements: trends, market impacts, regulatory responses, and
remaining challenges, GAO-03-138.
Graham, B., and D. Dodd, 1934, Security Analysis, McGraw-Hill.
Kothari, S. P. and Jerold B. Warner, 1997, Measuring long-horizon
security price performance. Journal of Financial Economics 43, 301-339.
Hougen, R., 1999, The New Finance: The Case Against Efficient
Markets, 2nd edition. Prentice Hall.
Lakonishok, J., A. Shleifer, and R. Vishny, 1994, Contrarian
investment, extrapolation, and risk, Journal of Finance 49 (5),
1541-1578.
Lakonishok, J., R. La Porta, A. Shleifer, and R. Vishny, 1997, Good
news for value stocks: further evidence on market efficiency, Journal of
Finance, Vol. 52 No. 2, 859-874.
Li, G., 2005, Information quality, learning, and stock market
returns, Journal Of Financial And Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 40 No.3,
595-620.
Lo, A., and C. Mackinly, 1990, When are contrarian profits due to
stock market overreactions? Review of Financial Studies 3, 175-206.
Xu, t., D. Li, and J. Jin, 2006, Long-term market reactions to
earnings restatements, working paper.
Tan Xu, Old Dominion University
Diane Li, University of Maryland-Eastern Shore
John Jongdae Jin, California State University-San Bernardino
ENDNOTES
(1) This study adopts the definition made by GAO (2002), i.e., it
is "an instance in which a company restates its financial
statements because they were not fairly presented in accordance with
generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). This would include
material errors and fraud."
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics of Restating Firms and All COMPUSTAT
Firms
Panel A Book-to-market ratio
Year N1 Restating firms N2 All firms Diff
1997 61 0.572 33032 0.648 -0.076
1998 70 0.502 32633 0.772 -0.27
1999 122 0.694 31348 1.009 -0.315
2000 155 0.983 31629 0.854 0.129
2001 173 1.514 30032 1.837 -0.323
2002 91 1.382 27145 1.774 -0.392
Total 672 1.004 185819 1.145 -0.141
Year z-stat Industry t-stat
Adjusted
1997 -0.71 0.153 1.95
1998 -1.79 0.023 0.54
1999 -1.78 0.153 2.43 *
2000 1.15 0.271 4.05 **
2001 -1.64 0.371 1.75
2002 -0.15 0.353 2.06 *
Total -0.35 0.249 3.89 **
Panel B Market value (Million dollars)
Year N1 Restating firms N2 All firms Diff
1997 64 550.8 36827 1034.13 -483.33
1998 70 2450.27 36857 1292.68 1157.59
1999 128 2234.65 36404 1566.89 667.76
2000 166 1935.09 37222 1902.6 32.43
2001 183 2796.24 35970 1580.11 1216.13
2002 92 2695.2 33886 1496.68 1198.52
Total 703 2230.89 217166 1484.35 746.54
Year z-stat Industry t-stat
Adjusted
1997 -0.94 379.02 1.81
1998 0.7 2366.71 2.26 *
1999 2.99 ** 1737.54 2.06 *
2000 2.15 * 1815.02 2.07 *
2001 7.98 ** 2601.81 4.09 **
2002 5 74 ** 1716.04 2.16 *
Total 8.44 ** 1921.11 5.66 **
Panel C Total debt / Total asset
Year N1 Restating firms N2 All firms Diff
1997 64 0.33 40002 0.513 -0.184
1998 71 0.234 39410 0.386 -0.152
1999 132 0.309 40310 0.486 -0.177
2000 167 0.281 40616 0.601 -0.32
2001 192 0.269 37973 0.9 -0.63
2002 96 0.132 34591 0.281 -0.149
Total 722 0.283 232902 0.685 -0.402
Year z-stat Industry t-stat
Adjusted
1997 3.11 ** 0.107 4.10 **
1998 -0.18 0.661 3.17 **
1999 0.47 0.116 3.66 **
2000 0.46 0.947 4 11 **
2001 0.65 0.52 3.52 **
2002 0.84 0.342 1.55
Total 2.10 * 0.779 7.87 **
N1 = the number of restating firms with non-negative value,
N2 = the number of all COMPUSTAT firms with non-negative value,
Diff = the difference between the median (mean) of the restating
firms and those of all the COMPUSTAT firms.
*, and ** = statistical significance at the 5% and 1% levels,
respectively, using a 2-tail test.
Table 2: Reasons for Restatement (by Incidents)
Reasons for Restatement Incidents Percentage
(%)
Revenue recognition 349 38
Cost or expense related 144 15.7
Others 131 14.3
Restructuring, assets, or inventory 82 8.9
Mergers and Acquisitions 55 6
Securities related 50 5.4
Reclassifications 47 5.1
In-process research and development related 33 3.6
Related-party transactions 28 3
Total 919 100
Table 3: GARCH-Adjusted Abnormal Returns around Earnings Restatement
Announcements
Day Obs. Mean Abnormal Median Abnormal Positive:
Return (%) Return (%) Negative
-7 517 -0.58 -0.25 230:287
-6 517 0.09 -0.12 246:271
-5 517 -0.42 -0.36 224:293
-4 517 -0.16 -0.41 221:296
-3 517 -0.93 -0.46 204:313
-2 516 -0.2 -0.12 241:275
-1 515 -0.25 -0.19 239:276
0 510 -2.9 -0.94 204:306
1 505 -4.38 -1.48 187:318
2 507 0.07 -0.18 239:268
3 507 0.15 -0.13 241:266
4 506 -0.08 -0.33 233:273
5 507 0.01 -0.17 240:267
6 508 0.04 -0.09 243:265
7 508 -0.24 -0.22 239:269
CAR
(-1, +1) 515 -7.42 -3.54 167:348
(-5, +5) 517 -8.96 -3.99 190:327
Day t-stat Generalized
Sign Z
-7 -2.640 ** -1.207
-6 0.388 0.203
-5 -1.878 -1.735
-4 -0.715 -2.000 *
-3 -4 187 *** -3 497 ***
-2 -0.913 -0.196
-1 -1.118 -0.331
0 -13.128 *** -3.229 **
1 -19 798 *** -4 550 ***
2 0.294 0.002
3 0.665 0.18
4 -0.366 -0.491
5 0.032 0.091
6 0.16 0.315
7 -1.065 -0.04
(-1, +1) -9 750 *** -6.687 ***
(-5, +5) -8.723 *** -4 731 ***
Abnormal returns = the difference between the actual return and the
predicted returns calculated by the GARCH-adjusted market model.
Obs = the number of sample firms.
* and ** = statistical significance at 5% & 1%, respectively using a
2-tail test.
Table 4: GARCH-Adjusted Abnormal Returns around Earnings Restatement
Announcements for the sub-sample period:
Jan. 1997-Mar. 2000
Day Obs. Mean Abnormal Median Abnormal Positive:
Return (%) Return (%) Negative
-7 214 -0.56 -0.23 95:119
-6 214 0.11 -0.1 102:112
-5 214 -0.41 -0.35 93:121
-4 214 -0.14 -0.39 91:123
-3 214 -0.9 -0.43 84:130
-2 213 -0.18 -0.1 99:114
-1 213 -0.19 -0.13 98:114
0 210 -2.92 -0.96 83:124
1 203 -4.35 -1.45 75:127
2 204 0.09 -0.16 96:108
3 204 0.18 -0.1 97:107
4 203 -0.06 -0.31 93:110
5 204 0.02 -0.16 97:107
6 205 0.06 -0.07 98:107
7 205 -0.23 -0.21 96:109
CAR
(-1, +1) 213 -6.92 -3.21 93:119
(-5, +5) 214 -7.78 -3.37 95:117
Day t-stat Generalized Sign Z
-7 -1.134 -1.296
-6 0.269 0.637
-5 -1.691 -1.542
-4 -0.842 -1.066
-3 -1.153 -3 497 ***
-2 -3.133 *** -0.196
-1 -0.978 -0.331
0 -9 947 *** -2. 975 **
1 -13.674 *** -5.046 ***
2 0.638 0.047
3 0.863 0.894
4 -0.954 -0.847
5 0.019 0.185
6 0.635 0.853
7 -0.932 -0.053
(-1, +1) -8.532 *** -5 753 ***
(-5, +5) -7 753 *** -4.136 ***
Abnormal returns = the difference between the actual return and the
predicted returns calculated by the GARCH-adjusted market model.
Obs = the number of sample firms.
*, ** and *** = statistical significance at 10%, 5% & 1%, respectively
using a 2-tail test.
Table 5: GARCH-Adjusted Abnormal Returns around Earnings Restatement
Announcements for the sub-sample period:
Apr. 2000-Jun. 2002
Day Obs. Mean Abnormal Median Abnormal Positive:
Return (%) Return (%) Negative
-7 303 -0.59 -0.26 135:168
-6 303 0.08 -0.13 144:159
-5 303 -0.43 -0.37 131:172
-4 303 -0.17 -0.42 130:173
-3 303 -0.95 -0.48 120:183
-2 303 -0.21 -0.13 142:161
-1 302 -0.29 -0.23 140:162
0 300 -2.89 -0.93 120:180
1 302 -4.4 -1.5 111:190
2 303 0.06 -0.19 143:160
3 303 0.13 -0.15 144:159
4 303 -0.09 -0.34 140:163
5 303 0 -0.18 143:160
6 303 0.03 -0.1 145:158
7 303 -0.25 -0.23 143:160
CAR
(-1, +1) 302 -7.79 -3.63 167:348
(-5, +5) 303 -9.85 -4.74 190:327
Day t-stat Generalized Sign Z
-7 -2.832 ** -1.436
-6 0.388 0.424
-5 -1.578 -1.386
-4 -1.046 -2.304 *
-3 -5 327 *** -4.064 ***
-2 -1.058 -0.296
-1 -0.903 -0.572
0 -14.735 *** -3.858 **
1 -18.858 *** -4 958 ***
2 0.578 0.043
3 0.365 0.898
4 -0.735 -0.459
5 0.174 0.171
6 0.016 0.585
7 -0.965 -0.073
(-1, +1) -9.960 *** -7.001 ***
(-5, +5) -8.683 *** -4.938. ***
Abnormal returns = the difference between the actual return and the
predicted returns calculated by the GARCH-adjusted market model.
Obs = the number of sample firms.
*, ** and *** = statistical significance at 10%, 5% & 1%, respectively
using a 2-tail test.
Table 6: Mean Comparisons between Groups Sorted by One-Way
Classification Method
Panel A. Sample stocks grouped by BM ratio
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5
(Growth) (Value)
Obs. 90 79 101 87 123
MAG -7.21 -2.32 -4.69 -5.91 -7.03
CAR -7.13 -4.83 -9.13 -6.71 -8.07
t-stat t-stat t-stat
(1 & 3) (3 & 5) (1 & 5)
Obs.
MAG
CAR 1.69 * 0.70 0.18
Panel B. Sample stocks grouped by CP ratio
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5
(Growth) (Value)
Obs. 86 97 93 79 87
MAG -6.85 -4.62 -3.44 -5.09 -7.95
CAR -7.31 -4.48 -9.53 -6.91 -8.12
t-stat t-stat t-stat
(1 & 3) (3 & 5) (1 & 5)
Obs.
MAG
CAR 0.39 0.85 0.18
Panel C. Sample stocks grouped by GS
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5
(Growth) (Value)
Obs. 82 89 84 67 91
MAG -7.47 -3.95 -4.79 -4.03 -7.12
CAR -5.91 -5.61 -8.93 -7.52 -7.4
t-stat t-stat t-stat
(1 & 3) (3 & 5) (1 & 5)
Obs.
MAG
CAR 0.63 1.82 * 0.95
Obs = the number of firms in each subgroup.
MAG = the average magnitude of earnings restatements in each
subgroup.
CAR = the average CAR of each subgroup.
*, ** = Statistical significance at the 10% and 5%, respectively.
Table 7: Mean Comparisons between Groups Sorted by Two-Way
Classification Method
Panel A. Sample stocks grouped by both BM and GS
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
(Low BM & (Middle BM (High BM
High GS) & Middle GS) & Low GS)
Obs. 30 38 81
MAG -5.35 -4.15 -7.22
CAR -5.75 -5.92 -8.21
t-stat t-stat t-stat
(1 & 2) (2 & 3) (1 & 3)
Obs.
MAG
CAR 0.56 1.36 1.69 *
Panel B. Sample stocks grouped by both CP and GS
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
(Low BM & (Middle BM (High BM
High GS) & Middle GS) & Low GS)
Obs. 7 41 67
MAG -6.35 -5.45 -4.70
CAR -6.20 -5.61 -7.09
t-stat t-stat t-stat
(1 & 2) (2 & 3) (1 & 3)
Obs.
MAG
CAR 0.92 1.57 0.91
Obs = the number of firms in each subgroup.
MAG = the average magnitude of earnings restatements in each
subgroup.
CAR = the average CAR of each subgroup.
*, ** = Statistical significance at the 10% and 5%, respectively
Table 8: Regressions of CAR on the glamour/value proxies & the
Restating Magnitude
[CAR.sub.it] = [alpha] + [[beta].sub.1] [MAG.sub.it] +
[[beta].sub.2] [BM.sub.it] + [[epsilon].sub.t] (1)
[CAR.sub.it] = [alpha] + [[beta].sub.1] [MAG.sub.it] +
[[beta].sub.2] [CP.sub.it] + [[epsilon].sub.t] (1')
Panel A. Equation (1)
Intercept MAG BM Adj. [R.sup.2]
-6.67 0.03 -0.005 0.07
(-4.22 **) (0.72) (-0.33)
Panel B. Equation (1')
Intercept MAG CP Adj. [R.sup.2]
-5.58 0.03 -0.01 0.08
(-5.13 **) (0.61) (-0.86)
[CAR.sub.it] = CAR of firm 'i' in year 't'.
MAG = the magnitude of earnings restatements.
BM = the book to market value ratio.
CP = the cash flow to market value ratio.
*, ** = Statistical significance at the 10% and 5%, respectively
() = the t-value.
Table 9: Regressions of the residual on the glamour/value proxies
[RES.sub.it] = [alpha] + [[beta].sub.1] [BM.sub.it] +
[[epsilon].sub.t] (3)
[RES.sub.it] = [alpha] + [[beta].sub.1] [CP.sub.it] +
[[epsilon].sub.t] (3')
Intercept BM CP Adj. [R.sup.2]
0.0023 -0.0071 0.03
(-1.62)
0.0017 -0.0875 0.07
(-0.86)
RES = the residual of the regression of CAR on restatement magnitude.
BM = the book to market value ratio.
CP = the cash flow to market value ratio.
*, ** = Statistical significance at the 10% and 5%, respectively
() = the t-value.
Table 10: Regressions of CAR on the glamour/value proxies & the
Restating Magnitude for two sub-sample periods
[CAR.sub.it] = [alpha] + [[beta].sub.1] [MAG.sub.it] + [[beta].sub.2]
[BM.sub.it] + [[epsilon].sub.t] (1)
[CAR.sub.it] = [alpha] + [[beta].sub.1] [MAG.sub.it] + [[beta].sub.2]
[CP.sub.it] + [[epsilon].sub.t] (1)
Panel A. Equation (1) for the sub-sample period form January 1997 to
March 2000
Intercept MAG BM Adj. [R.sup.2]
-6.98 0.17 -0.014 0.03
(-2.12 **) (0.59) (-0.04)
Panel B. Equation (1) for the sub-sample period from April 2000 to
June 2002
Intercept MAG BM Adj. [R.sup.2]
-6.16 0.08 0.01 0.17
(-4.84 **) (0.29) (0.49)
Panel C. Equation (1') for the sub-sample period form January 1997 to
March 2000
Intercept MAG CP Adj. [R.sup.2]
-6.03 0.01 -0.04 0.1
(-3.75 **) (0.93) (-0.57)
Panel D. Equation (1') for the sub-sample period from April 2000 to
June 2002
Intercept MAG CP Adj. [R.sup.2]
-5.26 0.03 0.00 0.08
(-2.37 **) (0.61) (0.63)
BM = the book to market value ratio.
CP = the cash flow to market value ratio.
*, ** = Statistical significance at the 10% and 5%, respectively
() = the t-value
Table 11: Regressions of the residual on the glamour/value proxies for
two sub-sample periods
[RES.sub.it] = [alpha] + [[beta].sub.1] [BM.sub.it] +
[[epsilon].sub.t] (3)
[RES.sub.it] = [alpha] + [[beta].sub.1] [CP.sub.it] +
[[epsilon].sub.t] (3')
Panel A. Regression for the sub-sample from January 1997 to March 2000
Intercept BM CP Adj. R2
0.007 0.011 0.02
(1.62)
0.002 -0.105 0.09
(-1.02)
Panel B. Regression for the sub-sample from April 2000 to June 2002
Intercept BM CP Adj. R2
0.001 -0.009 0.03
(-0.82)
0.002 -0.02 0.03
(-0.53)
BM = the book to market value ratio.
CP = the cash flow to market value ratio.
*, ** = Statistical significance at the 10% and 5%, respectively
() = the t-value.