Limits to arbitrage, market sentiment, and the return patterns after earnings announcements

Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

1-2025

Abstract

We find that stock-level valuation uncertainty (measured by idiosyncratic risk) and prevailing market-wide sentiment significantly affect the post earnings announcement return drift. When earnings surprise conflicts with prevailing market sentiment, stocks with higher valuation uncertainty demonstrate a greater return drift. In contrast, when earnings surprise is in line with market sentiment, the same highly uncertain stocks do not exhibit the anomalous post-earnings announcement drifts. These results are robust after controlling well-documented factors contributing to variations in the magnitude of return patterns. Our findings suggest that investors of highly uncertain stocks underreact to earnings news that conflicts with prevailing market sentiment.

Keywords

valuation uncertainty, market sentiment, PEAD

Discipline

Finance and Financial Management | Portfolio and Security Analysis

Research Areas

Finance

Publication

Journal of Behavioral Finance

ISSN

1542-7560

Identifier

10.1080/15427560.2024.2444290

Publisher

Taylor and Francis Group

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1080/15427560.2024.2444290

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