Value Investing: The Use of Historical Financial Statement Information to Separate Winners from Losers
Posted: 5 Jan 2001
Abstract
This paper examines whether a simple accounting-based fundamental analysis strategy, when applied to a broad portfolio of high book-to-market firms, can shift the distribution of returns earned by an investor. I show that the mean return earned by a high book-to-market investor can be increased by at least 7 percent annually through the selection of financially strong high BM firms while the entire distribution of realized returns is shifted to the right. In addition, an investment strategy that buys expected winners and shorts expected losers generates a 23 percent annual return between 1976 and 1996 and the strategy appears to be robust across time and to controls for alternative investment strategies. Within the portfolio of high BM firms, the benefits to financial statement analysis are concentrated in small and medium sized firms, companies with low share turnover and firms with no analyst following, yet this superior performance is not dependent on purchasing firms with low share prices. A positive relationship between the sign of the initial historical information and both future firm performance and subsequent quarterly earnings announcement reactions suggests that the market initially underreacts to the historical information. In particular, 1/6th of the annual return difference between ex ante strong and weak firms is earned over the four three-day periods surrounding these quarterly earnings announcements. Overall, the evidence suggests that the market does not fully incorporate historical financial information into prices in a timely manner.
Keywords: Financial statement analysis; Book-to-market effect
JEL Classification: M41, G14
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation