The Market Valuation Of Earnings In Germany, The United Kingdom And The United States

Abstract

This paper examines a short-term market reaction to unexpected earnings in the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. The results indicate that all three markets react quickly to earnings releases. Further, when changes in analysts’ forecasts are used as an indication of updated earnings expectations, all three markets respond as well. Thus, it appears that investors in both countries react to the release of unexpected earnings in a similar manner. We also examine the incremental explanatory power of analysts’ forecast errors over the change in earnings per share. As all three countries have well developed stock markets, investors are likely to formulate earnings expectations based on a wide range of financial and non-financial information, including analysts’ forecasts. Regression results indicate that in Germany, the UK and the US, both analysts' forecasts and earnings announcements are jointly associated with market returns suggesting that the analysts provide information incremental to that provided in earnings releases.