 Earnings Belief Risk and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns*Rajna Gibson Brandon and Songtao Wang Review of Finance, 2020, vol. 24, issue 5, 1107-1158 Abstract: We show in a theoretical asset pricing model incorporating heterogeneous beliefs that the expected excess return on a risky asset depends on its exposure to the risk arising from innovations in the average belief of investors about the expected return of a representative asset. Using the actual EPS data and the analyst EPS forecast data provided by I/B/E/S, we construct a market-wide average belief measure, which we call “the earnings belief measure.” We find that the average return on stocks with high sensitivity to earnings belief shocks is 7.14% per year higher than that on stocks with low sensitivity. This positive relationship holds after accounting for traditional risk factors, is prominent among large-cap stocks, and is invariant across sentiment levels. Keywords: Analysts’; EPS forecasts; Asset pricing; Earnings belief risk; EPS forecasting models; Heterogeneity of beliefs (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:revfin:v:24:y:2020:i:5:p:1107-1158. Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Review of Finance is currently edited by Marcin Kacperczyk More articles in Review of Finance from European Finance Association Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC. |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.