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The purpose of this study is to investigate whether audit quality is associated with the speed with which managers revise earnings forecasts to arrive at the actual earnings through the lens of the auditor selection theory. This study examines this relationship in a unique institutional setting, Japan, where nearly all managers disclose earnings forecasts.

The authors pioneer an empirical proxy to capture the speed of management forecast revisions based on well-established principles from the finance and disclosure literatures. This proxy is tested alongside other disclosure proxies (namely, accuracy, frequency and timeliness) to assess the influence of audit quality on managerial forecasting behavior.

This empirical analysis shows that forecast revision speed is higher for firms that select higher-quality auditors. While firms that select higher-quality auditors revise forecasts in a more timely fashion, these firms revise less frequently. Moreover, the authors find that the influence of audit quality on forecast revisions is asymmetric. Specifically, the analysis of downward forecast revisions shows that higher-quality auditors are associated with firms that disclose bad news via forecasts revisions faster, more frequently and in a more timely fashion. However, the analysis of upward forecast revisions shows that higher-quality auditors have no effect on the speed with which firms disclose good news via forecast revisions, even though they are associated with less frequent but more timely forecast revisions. These findings have important implications for prior studies that consistently document an asymmetric response of the stock market to good news and bad news.

The authors provide evidence on the relationship between audit quality and management earnings forecasts using a novel and intuitive measure that captures forecast revision speed. This measure speaks to the growing interest in understanding the notion of speed and timing of voluntary disclosures. This study provides a more robust and comprehensive measure of the speed with which managers revise their earnings forecasts to arrive at the actual earnings. Furthermore, this study is among the first to document an asymmetric effect of audit quality on the type of news disclosed in forecast revisions.

This study aims to evaluate the short-term impact of brokerage analysts’ recommendations on abnormal returns using a sample selected from the S&P BSE 100 in the Indian context. The efficient market hypothesis, specifically, its semi-strong form, is tested for “Buy” stock recommendations published in the electronic version of Business Standard. The crucial issue is, are there any abnormal returns that can be earned following a recommendation? If so, how quickly do prices incorporate the information value of these recommendations? It tests the impact of analyst recommendations on average abnormal returns (AARs) and standardized abnormal returns (SRs) to determine their statistical significance.

Using a sample of stock recommendations published in the e-version of Business Standard, the event study methodology is used to determine whether AARs and SRs are significantly different from zero for the duration of the event window by using several significance tests.

The findings indicate a marginal opportunity for profit in the short term, restricted to the event day. However, the effect does not persist, i.e. the market is efficient in its semi-strong form implying that investors cannot consistently earn abnormal returns by following analysts’ recommendations. Post the event date, the market reaction to analyst recommendations becomes positive, however, insignificant until the ninth day after the recommendation providing support to the underreaction hypothesis given by Shliefer (2000) and post-recommendation price drift documented by Womack (1996). The study contributes by using different statistical tests to determine the significance of returns.

There are important implications for traders, investors and portfolio managers. The speed with which market prices incorporate publicly available information is useful in formulating trading strategies. However, stock characteristics such as market capitalization, volatility and level of analyst coverage need to be incorporated while making investment decisions.

The study contributes by using different statistical tests to determine the significance of returns.

The recommendation of the analyst report is not only limited to a small number of ratings, but also biased toward a buy opinion with the absence of sell opinion. As an alternative to this, this paper aims to extract analysts' textual opinions embedded in the report body through text analysis and examine the profitability of investment strategies. Analyst opinion about a firm is measured by calculating the frequency of positive and negative words in the report text through the Korean sentiment lexicon for finance (KOSELF). To verify the usefulness of textual opinions, the author constructs a calendar-time based portfolios by the analysts' textual opinion variable of each stock. When opinion level is used, investment strategy has no significant hedged portfolio return. However, hedged portfolio constructed by opinion change shows significant return of 0.117% per day (2.57% per month). In addition, the hedged return increases to 0.163% per day (3.59% per month) when the opening price is used instead of closing price. This study show that the analysts’ opinion extracted from text analysis contains more detailed spectrum than recommendation and investment strategies using them give significant returns.

This paper aims to examine the effect of both inflation rate and interest rate on stock prices using quarterly data on non-financial firms listed in DJIA30 and NASDAQ100 for the period 1999-2016. The stock duration model is used to measure the sensitivity in variations in inflation rates and interest rates on stock prices.

The authors use standard statistical tools that include Johansen cointegration test, linearity, normality tests, cointegration regression, Granger causality and vector error correction model.

The results of panel Johansen cointegration analysis show that cointegration exists between the stock prices, the changes in stock prices due to inflation rates and the changes in stock prices due to real interest rates. The results of cointegration regression show that inflation rates are negatively associated with stock prices, the real interest rates and stock prices are positively associated, changes in real interest rates and inflation rates Granger cause significant changes in stock prices, significant speed of adjustment to long run equilibrium between observed stock prices and real interest rates and significant speed of adjustment to long run equilibrium between changes in stock prices due to real interest rates and changes in inflation rates.

This paper contributes to the empirical literature in three ways. The paper examines the effects of inflation and interest rates on stock prices differently from other related studies by separating inflation from real interest rates. The paper examines the causality between stock prices, interest and inflation rates. This paper offers significant updated validity to extended literature that a negative association exists between stock prices and inflation rates. This validity can be considered as an existence a theory of stock prices, inflation rates and interest rates.

This study aims to consider how migrants may act as channel of diffusion of knowledge which contributes to the dynamics of trade and comparative advantages of EU and MENA countries for the period 1990–2015.

Adopting an IV approach and a gravity framework to instrument for migration, the authors document how variations in stocks of migrants coming from (in) countries that are already competitive exporters of a given product impact on the probability that the destination (home) country starts to export competitively new products or succeed in exporting more intensively.

Controlling for potential confounding factors which can be correlated to knowledge flows and productivity shifts, the authors find trade-promoting effects via migration flows (mostly immigration) between the two areas, testing our hypotheses by different technology classes of products and different specifications.

The contribution of this work to the literature is threefold. First, by providing evidence on international knowledge diffusion induced by migration flows between MENA and EU regions, like no other work before, the authors document the effects of migration on trade and comparative advantages. Second, unlike standard literature on migration-trade link, the authors focus more on long-term structural changes in comparative advantages than on trade volumes. Third, we exploit how the effect of migration on margins of trade varies according to different types of goods, classified by technological level.

The purpose of this paper is to test whether financial analysts’ rationality in making stocks’ earnings forecasts is homogenous or not across different information regimes in stocks’ past returns.

By treating stocks’ past returns as the information variable in this study, the authors employ a threshold regression model to capture and test threshold effects of stocks’ past returns on financial analysts’ rationality in making earnings forecasts in different information regimes.

The results show that three significant structural breaks and four respective information regimes are identified in stocks’ past returns in the threshold regression model. Across the four different information regimes, financial analysts react to stocks’ past returns quite differently when making one-quarter ahead earnings forecasts. Furthermore, the authors find that financial analysts are only rational in a certain information regime of stocks’ past returns depending on a certain return-window such as one-quarter, two-quarter or four-quarter time period.

This study is different from those in the existing literature by arguing that there could exist heterogeneity in financial analysts’ rationality in making earnings forecasts when using stocks’ past returns information. The finding that financial analysts react to stocks’ past returns differently in the different information regimes of past returns adds value to the research on financial analysts’ rationality.

This study delves into the nuanced implications of short-sale constraints on stock prices within the context of stock market efficiency. While existing research has explored this relationship, inconsistencies persist in their findings. The purpose of this study is to conduct a comprehensive review of literature to elucidate the reasons behind these disparities.

A systematic review of existing theoretical and empirical studies was conducted following the PRISMA method. The analysis centered on discerning the factors contributing to the divergence in projected stock prices due to these constraints. Key areas explored included assumptions related to expectations homogeneity, revisions, information uncertainty, trading motivations and fluctuations in supply and demand of risky assets.

The review uncovered multifaceted reasons for the disparities in findings regarding the influence of short-sale constraints on stock prices. Variations in assumptions related to market expectations, coupled with fluctuations in perceived information uncertainty and trading motivations, were identified as pivotal factors contributing to differing projections. Empirical evidence disparities stemmed from the use of proxies for short-sale constraints, varied sample periods, market structure nuances, regulatory changes and the presence of option trading.

This study emphasizes the significance of not oversimplifying the impact of short-sale constraints on stock prices. It highlights the need to understand these effects within the broader context of market structure and methodological considerations. By delineating the intricate interplay of factors affecting stock prices under short-sale constraints, this review provides a nuanced perspective, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding in the field.

This study aims to quantify the cost of rebalancing Sharīʿah-compliant indexes, both economically and statistically.

An empirical approach is employed where the rebalanced Sharīʿah-compliant index is calculated numerous times with different lags in rebalancing, and the number of stocks and their cost across time are determined in order to identify the optimal rebalancing frequency.

This paper finds that annual Sharīʿah rebalancing does not lead to significant differences in portfolio returns, even though it does bring some advantages in cumulative wealth starting from the third year onwards and brings about better risk-return characteristics measured in terms of the Sharpe ratio. However, these advantages involve an average annual shifting between 30 and 60% of the portfolio market capitalization, which would be costly at any level of transaction costs.

A private investor may be better off holding a constant portfolio and only rebalancing in three-year intervals since this was shown to possess similar portfolio returns and cumulative wealth results. Any advantages of annual rebalancing in terms of risk-return characteristics may be offset by transaction costs of rebalancing. Sharīʿah scholars and practitioners are to determine when the correct time for rebalancing really is, taking into consideration the cost of rebalancing vis-à-vis the advantages in cumulative wealth and risk-return characteristics of the portfolio.

Predictions that Islamic indexes will perform well during financial crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, miss the cost of frequent rebalancing. This paper addresses this issue in an empirical manner learning from the previous crisis in 2008.

This study examines the relation between the presence of analysts’ long-term growth (LTG) forecasts and the post-earnings-announcement drift (PEAD).

Using a sample of firm-quarters from 1995 to 2013, the author conducts various regression analyses.

The author finds that the magnitude of PEAD is significantly smaller for firms with LTG forecasts. The relationship holds after controlling for a wide range of explanatory variables for PEAD returns or for the presence of LTG forecasts. The author further investigates three nonexclusive hypotheses to explain this relationship. First, LTG forecasts may convey incremental value-relevant information that facilitates investors’ processing of short-term earnings information. Second, the presence of LTG forecasts may indicate superiority in analysts’ short-term forecast ability and identify firms with more efficient short-term forecasts. Third, the presence of LTG forecasts may be associated with cross-sectional differences in the persistence of earnings surprises. The author finds that none of these fully accounts for the negative relationship between the presence of LTG forecasts and PEAD returns. Instead, the relationship may be a result of the presence of LTG forecasts capturing some unobservable firm characteristics beyond those identified in prior studies.

This study contributes to the PEAD literature by identifying a novel analyst-based predictor of the cross-sectional variation in PEAD returns.

The Foreign Financial Accounts Reporting was introduced for the purpose of preventing tax evasion and illegal acts through foreign financial accounts of Koreans. On December 27, 2010, it was newly established in “The Law for the Coordination of International Tax Affairs” and received its first report in June 2011, the following year. The system was further strengthened after three revisions. The first amendment was enforced from January 2012 after it took place on December 31, 2011. Thereafter, revisions and enforcement proceeded simultaneously in January 2013 and January 2014. This paper evaluates the performance of the system for four years from 2011 to 2014. In addition, we examined the effect of institutional implementation and changes on tax haven investors through empirical analysis using Korean stock market data. Assuming that Koreans disguised as foreigners participate in Korean stock trading through an anonymity of tax haven, this system will work to shrink the flow of capital from tax haven investors to other countries. Panel regression analysis using capital flows by country found that the transaction activity of tax havens decreased as compared to other countries after introducing and strengthening the acts.