Information in balance sheets for future stock returns: Evidence from net operating assets

Georgios Papanastasopoulos, Dimitrios Thomakos and Tao Wang

International Review of Financial Analysis, 2011, vol. 20, issue 5, 269-282

Abstract: In this paper, we show that the negative relation of net operating assets (NOA) with future stock returns first documented by Hirshleifer et al. (2004) applies to both net working and investing pieces of NOA, while it is mostly driven by asset NOA components. Predictability of returns is significant only for their unexpected parts (unrelated to past sales growth) and not uniform across different industries. We also find that only high (low) NOA firms with asset expansion (contraction) and weak (strong) background of profitable investments exhibit negative (positive) abnormal returns. Our evidence suggests that the NOA anomaly may be present due to a combination of opportunistic earnings management and agency related overinvestment.

Keywords: Net operating assets (NOA); Stock returns; Opportunistic earnings management; Overinvestment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Working Paper: Information in Balance Sheets for Future Stock Returns: Evidence from Net Operating Assets (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:finana:v:20:y:2011:i:5:p:269-282

DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2011.06.001

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