IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v77y2017icp157-175.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Aggregate earnings and stock market returns: The good, the bad, and the state-dependent

Author

Listed:
  • Zolotoy, Leon
  • Frederickson, James R.
  • Lyon, John D.

Abstract

Prior research documents a negative aggregate earnings-returns relation. In contrast, we posit that the sign of the relation varies, depending upon the macroeconomic and financial market conditions that exist in the earnings announcement quarter. We argue that the existing macroeconomic and financial market conditions influence market participants’ frame of reference, which in turn affects whether they interpret aggregate earnings surprises to be informative about the expected inflation component of the discount rate, the market risk premium component of the discount rate, or aggregate future cash flows. Consistent with this, we find that the sign of the aggregate earnings-returns relation changes numerous times across our sample period. We also find that market participants interpret aggregate earnings to be informative about changes in expected inflation (market risk premium) when the sign of the aggregate earnings-returns relation is negative (positive). Finally, we identify macroeconomic and financial market conditions under which the aggregate earnings-returns relation is more (less) likely to be negative (positive).

Suggested Citation

  • Zolotoy, Leon & Frederickson, James R. & Lyon, John D., 2017. "Aggregate earnings and stock market returns: The good, the bad, and the state-dependent," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 157-175.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:77:y:2017:i:c:p:157-175
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2017.01.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426617300055
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2017.01.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ben S. Bernanke & Kenneth N. Kuttner, 2005. "What Explains the Stock Market's Reaction to Federal Reserve Policy?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1221-1257, June.
    2. Campbell, John Y & Ammer, John, 1993. "What Moves the Stock and Bond Markets? A Variance Decomposition for Long-Term Asset Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-37, March.
    3. Gabriel Perez‐Quiros & Allan Timmermann, 2000. "Firm Size and Cyclical Variations in Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 1229-1262, June.
    4. Owen Lamont, 1998. "Earnings and Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(5), pages 1563-1587, October.
    5. Christiano, Lawrence J & Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles, 1996. "The Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks: Evidence from the Flow of Funds," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 16-34, February.
    6. Mark Gertler & Simon Gilchrist, 1994. "Monetary Policy, Business Cycles, and the Behavior of Small Manufacturing Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 109(2), pages 309-340.
    7. Andrew Ang & Geert Bekaert, 2002. "International Asset Allocation With Regime Shifts," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(4), pages 1137-1187.
    8. Yeung Lewis Chan & Leonid Kogan, 2002. "Catching Up with the Joneses: Heterogeneous Preferences and the Dynamics of Asset Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(6), pages 1255-1285, December.
    9. Edward E. Leamer, 2007. "Housing is the business cycle," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 149-233.
    10. Gert Peersman, 2005. "What caused the early millennium slowdown? Evidence based on vector autoregressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(2), pages 185-207.
    11. Ang, Andrew & Bekaert, Geert, 2002. "Short rate nonlinearities and regime switches," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 26(7-8), pages 1243-1274, July.
    12. Gibbons, Michael R & Ramaswamy, Krishna, 1993. "A Test of the Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross Model of the Term Structure," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(3), pages 619-658.
    13. Kothari, S.P. & Lewellen, Jonathan & Warner, Jerold B., 2006. "Stock returns, aggregate earnings surprises, and behavioral finance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 537-568, March.
    14. John Campbell & Jianping Mei, 1993. "Where do Betas Come From? Asset Price Dynamics and the Sources of Systematic Risk," NBER Working Papers 4329, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Andrew Ang & Geert Bekaert & Min Wei, 2008. "The Term Structure of Real Rates and Expected Inflation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 797-849, April.
    16. Hodrick, Robert J & Prescott, Edward C, 1997. "Postwar U.S. Business Cycles: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16, February.
    17. Anil K Kashyap & Owen A. Lamont & Jeremy C. Stein, 1994. "Credit Conditions and the Cyclical Behavior of Inventories," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 109(3), pages 565-592.
    18. John Y. Campbell & Christopher Polk & Tuomo Vuolteenaho, 2010. "Growth or Glamour? Fundamentals and Systematic Risk in Stock Returns," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(1), pages 305-344, January.
    19. William A. Branch, 2004. "The Theory of Rationally Heterogeneous Expectations: Evidence from Survey Data on Inflation Expectations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 592-621, July.
    20. Hahn, Jaehoon & Lee, Hangyong, 2006. "Yield Spreads as Alternative Risk Factors for Size and Book-to-Market," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(2), pages 245-269, June.
    21. Mark Gertler & R. Glenn Hubbard & Anil Kashyap, 1991. "Interest Rate Spreads, Credit Constraints, and Investment Fluctuations: An Empirical Investigation," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Markets and Financial Crises, pages 11-32, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Fama, Eugene F, 1975. "Short-Term Interest Rates as Predictors of Inflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(3), pages 269-282, June.
    23. John Y. Campbell & John Cochrane, 1999. "Force of Habit: A Consumption-Based Explanation of Aggregate Stock Market Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 205-251, April.
    24. Lieven Baele, 2010. "The Determinants of Stock and Bond Return Comovements," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(6), pages 2374-2428, June.
    25. DeFond, Mark L. & Hung, Mingyi, 2003. "An empirical analysis of analysts' cash flow forecasts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 73-100, April.
    26. Guidolin, Massimo & Timmermann, Allan, 2007. "Asset allocation under multivariate regime switching," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(11), pages 3503-3544, November.
    27. Ralitsa Petkova, 2006. "Do the Fama–French Factors Proxy for Innovations in Predictive Variables?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(2), pages 581-612, April.
    28. Engsted, Tom & Pedersen, Thomas Q. & Tanggaard, Carsten, 2012. "Pitfalls in VAR based return decompositions: A clarification," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 1255-1265.
    29. Hirshleifer, David & Hou, Kewei & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2009. "Accruals, cash flows, and aggregate stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 389-406, March.
    30. Hess Chung & Troy Davig & Eric M. Leeper, 2007. "Monetary and Fiscal Policy Switching," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(4), pages 809-842, June.
    31. Li, Yan & Ng, David T. & Swaminathan, Bhaskaran, 2013. "Predicting market returns using aggregate implied cost of capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 419-436.
    32. Martin Lettau & Sydney Ludvigson, 2001. "Consumption, Aggregate Wealth, and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 815-849, June.
    33. John Y. Campbell & Tuomo Vuolteenaho, 2004. "Bad Beta, Good Beta," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1249-1275, December.
    34. Troy Davig & Eric M. Leeper, 2007. "Generalizing the Taylor Principle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 607-635, June.
    35. Andrews, Donald W K, 1993. "Tests for Parameter Instability and Structural Change with Unknown Change Point," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(4), pages 821-856, July.
    36. Amisano, Gianni & Fagan, Gabriel, 2013. "Money growth and inflation: A regime switching approach," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 118-145.
    37. Joshua Livnat & Richard R. Mendenhall, 2006. "Comparing the Post–Earnings Announcement Drift for Surprises Calculated from Analyst and Time Series Forecasts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 177-205, March.
    38. Ang, Andrew & Bekaert, Geert, 2002. "Regime Switches in Interest Rates," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(2), pages 163-182, April.
    39. Hamilton, James D, 1989. "A New Approach to the Economic Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series and the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 357-384, March.
    40. Swanson, Norman R., 1998. "Money and output viewed through a rolling window," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 455-474, May.
    41. He, Wen & Hu, Maggie (Rong), 2014. "Aggregate Earnings and Market Returns: International Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 879-901, August.
    42. Raffaella Giacomini & Barbara Rossi, 2006. "How Stable is the Forecasting Performance of the Yield Curve for Output Growth?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 68(s1), pages 783-795, December.
    43. Arturo Estrella, 2005. "Why Does the Yield Curve Predict Output and Inflation?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(505), pages 722-744, July.
    44. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1989. "Business conditions and expected returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 23-49, November.
    45. John H. Boyd & Jian Hu & Ravi Jagannathan, 2005. "The Stock Market's Reaction to Unemployment News: Why Bad News Is Usually Good for Stocks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(2), pages 649-672, April.
    46. Pesaran, M Hashem & Timmermann, Allan, 1995. "Predictability of Stock Returns: Robustness and Economic Significance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1201-1228, September.
    47. Christopher D. Carroll, 2003. "Macroeconomic Expectations of Households and Professional Forecasters," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 118(1), pages 269-298.
    48. Ang, Andrew & Chen, Joseph, 2002. "Asymmetric correlations of equity portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 443-494, March.
    49. Ravi Bansal & Hao Zhou, 2002. "Term Structure of Interest Rates with Regime Shifts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 1997-2043, October.
    50. Estrella, Arturo & Hardouvelis, Gikas A, 1991. "The Term Structure as a Predictor of Real Economic Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 555-576, June.
    51. Sadka, Gil & Sadka, Ronnie, 2009. "Predictability and the earnings-returns relation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 87-106, October.
    52. Kim, Chang-Jin, 1994. "Dynamic linear models with Markov-switching," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1-2), pages 1-22.
    53. Antonello D'Agostino & Paolo Surico, 2012. "A Century of Inflation Forecasts," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(4), pages 1097-1106, November.
    54. Peter Hecht & Tuomo Vuolteenaho, 2006. "Explaining Returns with Cash-Flow Proxies," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(1), pages 159-194.
    55. Ball, Ray & Sadka, Gil, 2015. "Aggregate earnings and why they matter," Journal of Accounting Literature, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 39-57.
    56. Andersen, Torben G. & Bollerslev, Tim & Diebold, Francis X. & Vega, Clara, 2007. "Real-time price discovery in global stock, bond and foreign exchange markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 251-277, November.
    57. Charles T. Carlstrom & Timothy S. Fuerst, 2003. "The Taylor rule: a guidepost for monetary policy?," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Jul.
    58. Blair, Bevan J. & Poon, Ser-Huang & Taylor, Stephen J., 2001. "Forecasting S&P 100 volatility: the incremental information content of implied volatilities and high-frequency index returns," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 5-26, November.
    59. Banerjee, Prithviraj S. & Doran, James S. & Peterson, David R., 2007. "Implied volatility and future portfolio returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(10), pages 3183-3199, October.
    60. Ray Ball & Gil Sadka & Ronnie Sadka, 2009. "Aggregate Earnings and Asset Prices," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(5), pages 1097-1133, December.
    61. McInnis, John & Collins, Daniel W., 2011. "The effect of cash flow forecasts on accrual quality and benchmark beating," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 219-239, April.
    62. Shivakumar, Lakshmanan, 2007. "Aggregate earnings, stock market returns and macroeconomic activity: A discussion of `does earnings guidance affect market returns? The nature and information content of aggregate earnings guidance'," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1-2), pages 64-73, September.
    63. Long Chen & Xinlei Zhao, 2009. "Return Decomposition," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 5213-5249, December.
    64. William M. Cready & Umit G. Gurun, 2010. "Aggregate Market Reaction to Earnings Announcements," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(2), pages 289-334, May.
    65. Campbell, John Y & Mei, Jianping, 1993. "Where Do Betas Come From? Asset Price Dynamics and the," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(3), pages 567-592.
    66. McQueen, Grant & Roley, V Vance, 1993. "Stock Prices, News, and Business Conditions," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(3), pages 683-707.
    67. Branch, William A., 2007. "Sticky information and model uncertainty in survey data on inflation expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 245-276, January.
    68. Cenesizoglu, Tolga, 2011. "Size, book-to-market ratio and macroeconomic news," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 248-270, March.
    69. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "State-Space Models with Regime Switching: Classical and Gibbs-Sampling Approaches with Applications," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262112388, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jaewoo Kim & Bryce Schonberger & Charles Wasley & Hunter Land, 2020. "Intertemporal variation in the information content of aggregate earnings and its effect on the aggregate earnings-return relation," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 1410-1443, December.
    2. Vinay Goyal & Subrata K. Mitra, 2022. "Is the asymmetric impact of aggregate revenue and aggregate earnings on the stock index in accordance with the prospect theory?," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 200-222, March.
    3. Safdar, Irfan, 2018. "The information content of aggregate profitability," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 497-515.
    4. Lyócsa, Štefan & Molnár, Peter & Plíhal, Tomáš & Širaňová, Mária, 2020. "Impact of macroeconomic news, regulation and hacking exchange markets on the volatility of bitcoin," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maio, Paulo & Philip, Dennis, 2015. "Macro variables and the components of stock returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 287-308.
    2. Cenesizoglu, Tolga, 2011. "Size, book-to-market ratio and macroeconomic news," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 248-270, March.
    3. Henkel, Sam James & Martin, J. Spencer & Nardari, Federico, 2011. "Time-varying short-horizon predictability," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 560-580, March.
    4. William M. Cready & Umit G. Gurun, 2010. "Aggregate Market Reaction to Earnings Announcements," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(2), pages 289-334, May.
    5. Paulo Maio, 2014. "Another Look at the Stock Return Response to Monetary Policy Actions," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(1), pages 321-371.
    6. Maria Ogneva, 2013. "Discussion of What Do Management Earnings Forecasts Convey About the Macroeconomy?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 267-279, May.
    7. Ball, Ray & Sadka, Gil, 2015. "Aggregate earnings and why they matter," Journal of Accounting Literature, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 39-57.
    8. Andrew Ang & Allan Timmermann, 2012. "Regime Changes and Financial Markets," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 313-337, October.
    9. Tolga Cenesizoglu, 2010. "Size, Book-to-Market Ratio and Macroeconomic News," Cahiers de recherche 1033, CIRPEE.
    10. Safdar, Irfan, 2018. "The information content of aggregate profitability," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 497-515.
    11. Xanthi Gkougkousi, 2014. "Aggregate Earnings and Corporate Bond Markets," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 75-106, March.
    12. Lieven Baele & Pilar Soriano, 2010. "The determinants of increasing equity market comovement: economic or financial integration?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 146(3), pages 573-589, September.
    13. Massimo Guidolin, 2011. "Markov Switching Models in Empirical Finance," Advances in Econometrics, in: Missing Data Methods: Time-Series Methods and Applications, pages 1-86, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    14. Rapach, David & Zhou, Guofu, 2013. "Forecasting Stock Returns," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 328-383, Elsevier.
    15. Choi, Jung Ho & Kalay, Alon & Sadka, Gil, 2016. "Earnings news, expected earnings, and aggregate stock returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 110-143.
    16. Alexandros Kontonikas & Alexandros Kostakis, 2013. "On Monetary Policy and Stock Market Anomalies," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(7-8), pages 1009-1042, September.
    17. Wu, Ming & Ohk, Kiyool & Ko, Kwangsoo, 2019. "Are cash-flow betas really bad? Evidence from the Greater Chinese stock markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 58-68.
    18. Alexander Kurov, 2012. "What determines the stock market's reaction to monetary policy statements?," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(4), pages 175-187, November.
    19. , & Stein, Tobias, 2021. "Equity premium predictability over the business cycle," CEPR Discussion Papers 16357, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. GIOT, Pierre & PETITJEAN, Mikael, 2005. "Dynamic asset allocation between stocks and bonds using the Bond-Equity Yield Ratio," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2005010, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Aggregate earnings; Discount rate; Market returns; State dependence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:77:y:2017:i:c:p:157-175. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.