Investor Reaction to the Discovery of Accounting Fraud: The Period from the Discovery of the Fraud to the Completion of the Correction

This paper examines the period from the discovery of accounting fraud to the completion of correction and examines the reaction of investors on the date of the first news release suggesting accounting manipulation, the date of the subsequent release of information related to the amount of profit correction that was not disclosed on the date of the first news release, and the date of the submission of the correction report. The verification results show that the stock price falls sharply on the day of the first news release and the day when the information about the amount of profit revision is disclosed, that when the amount of profit revision is large and it takes time to disclose information about the amount of profit revision, there is a rebound in the stock price on the day when the correction report is submitted because investors like the resolution of uncertainty, and that there is a relationship between the amount of profit revision and the size of stock price decline. However, when there is no information about the amount of correction on the first day of the news release, investors react uniformly, and the reaction to a large (small) amount of correction is underreaction (overreaction). These results indicate that investors were misled by the misstatements until the fraud was discovered and made decisions based on overestimates of future cash flows, so they suffered unexpected losses when the fraud was discovered, and during the period from the fraud discovery to the completion of correction. Received: 3 August 2021 / Accepted: 6 October 2021 / Published: 5 November 2021

REAKSI INVESTOR TERHADAP PENGUMUMAN LABA DAN UNEXPECTED EARNING PADA SEKTOR INFRASTRUKTUR SAAT MENGHADAPI KOS STICKINESS

The purpose of this study is to determine investors reactions to earnings announcements and unexpected earnings when facing stickiness cost. Sampling in this study used a purposive sampling technique with a total of 10 infrastructure companies listed on the IDX during 2015-2019. The analysis technique in this study uses panel regression analysis using EVIEWS 9. The results of this study indicate that there is no investor reaction to earnings announcements in infrastructure companies when there are low and high stickiness cost. However, when the company has a combined stickiness cost, there is an investor's reaction to the earnings announcement by seeing a positive CAR value which means good earnings quality. Unexpected Earning has no effect on companies that are facing stickiness cost, so the results of this study indicate that there is no investor reaction to unexpected earnings in infrastructure companies that have low, high, and combined stickiness cost. The conclusion of this study is that earnings information becomes less important in predicting future earnings.

Prior Forecasting Accuracy and Investor Reaction to Management Earnings Forecasts

We examine the properties of firms’ forecasting records and whether the accuracy of their prior earnings forecasts affects investor response to their subsequent forecasts. Within the context of a Bayesian model of investor learning, we find that the stock price response to management forecast news is increasing in prior forecast accuracy and also in the length of a firm’s forecasting record. Further, we document that investors are more responsive to extreme good and bad news forecasts when a firm has an established forecasting record. Overall, these results suggest that a firm’s prior forecasting behavior allows it to establish a forecasting reputation, and that market forces encourage accurate forecasting as firms benefit from having a reputation for forecasting accurately.

Virtue Rhetoric in Investor Communications: Setting Up for a Letdown?

Many companies prominently espouse their virtuous character in communications with investors, with a view toward influencing investor perceptions about the firm’s standards of behavior. While there are benefits to investors perceiving an organization to be virtuous, what happens if the firm violates those standards by engaging in unethical behavior? In this study, we use expectancy violations theory to argue that virtue rhetoric sets investors up for disappointment. When an organization claims to be virtuous but then acts unethically, investors respond to the ethics violation more negatively than they would otherwise. We also theorize about scenarios where investors may overlook unethical behavior or intensify their disapproval of it. To test our ideas, we assemble a unique sample of unethical events committed by S&P 500 companies over a 12-year period, combined with analysis of the virtue rhetoric found in their annual letters to shareholders. Our main finding is that investor reaction to unethical behavior is more negative for companies that claimed to be virtuous prior to the violation than for those that did not make such claims. This relationship is less strong when the company has high expected future value.

Internal or External Financing: New Evidence on Investor Reaction in Indonesian Manufacturing Firms

Research aims: This study aims to examine investor reaction to financing sources due to its pecking order theory hierarchy.Design/Methodology/Approach: This research used a purposive sampling method of manufacturing listed firms on the Indonesia Stock Exchange, which were tested utilizing Ordinary Least Square and SPSS software.Research findings: The results showed that the investor reacted negatively to internal financing measured by the firm's retained earnings. Conversely, this research found that investors reacted positively to external financing in measurement, leverage, and equity issuance. Furthermore, the results revealed that leverage had a more positive reaction than equity issuance.Theoretical contribution/Originality: This research contributes to the pecking order theory literature to test how investor reacts to which source of financing is chosen due to its hierarchy. There is evidence that Indonesian manufacturing firms had inadequate internal financing, which made investors react negatively, and investors tended to choose leverage over equity as external financing.Practitioner/Policy implication: Our study contributes to the firm's management to carefully choose financing sources to fulfill the investor interest. This research also suggests that the firm produces more profit to provide adequate internal source financing as the research results showed that investors preferred internal than external financing. Furthermore, when there is inadequate internal financing, the firm's management should use leverage over equity.Research limitation/Implication: First, our study employed total liability rather than debt to leverage measurement. Second, our study only provided evidence of negative reactions to show that the firm failed to provide adequate internal financing sources rather than examined the level of adequate internal financing sources.