Corporate Fraud Risk and Stock Market Performance

61 Pages Posted: 28 Jul 2015 Last revised: 7 May 2019

See all articles by Lena Jaroszek

Lena Jaroszek

Copenhagen Business School - Department of Finance

Alexandra Niessen-Ruenzi

University of Mannheim - Finance Area

Stefan Ruenzi

University of Mannheim - Department of International Finance

Date Written: December 2018

Abstract

We investigate the impact of fraud risk - measured by the probability for earnings overstatements - on a firm's future stock market performance. Based on an out-of-sample estimation of individual firms' fraud risk, we find that stocks with higher fraud risk earn significantly lower stock market returns. A long-short trading strategy delivers a statistically significant alpha of more than 10% per year. This result is robust to controlling for differences in firms' liquidity, downside risk, or investor preferences. Furthermore, abnormal returns are higher after periods of high sentiment, suggesting that the return patterns documented here constitute an anomaly.

Keywords: Corporate Fraud, Earnings Overstatements, Stock Returns

JEL Classification: G14, G12, G320, G340

Suggested Citation

Jaroszek, Lena and Niessen-Ruenzi, Alexandra and Ruenzi, Stefan, Corporate Fraud Risk and Stock Market Performance (December 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2636633 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2636633

Lena Jaroszek (Contact Author)

Copenhagen Business School - Department of Finance ( email )

Solbjerg Plads 3
Frederiksberg C, DK - 2000
Denmark

Alexandra Niessen-Ruenzi

University of Mannheim - Finance Area ( email )

Mannheim, 68131
Germany

Stefan Ruenzi

University of Mannheim - Department of International Finance ( email )

L9, 1-2
Mannheim, 68131
Germany

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
612
Abstract Views
4,302
Rank
92,828
PlumX Metrics