Why does operating profitability predict returns? New evidence on risk versus mispricing explanations

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Abstract

This study develops new evidence on risk versus mispricing explanations of the well-known profitability premium. First, we examine whether exposure to expected downside risk is a plausible explanation. We find that high profitability is associated with both lower ex ante and ex post probabilities of future price crashes. Thus, less profitable firms exhibit greater downside risk than highly profitable firms, making a downside risk explanation implausible. Although this fact is overlooked by the market in general, it is anticipated by options traders; we find that put options of low profitability firms are relatively more expensive. Simultaneously, these firms do not exhibit greater probability of jumps, indicating that volatility(risk)-based explanations for the profitability premium are unlikely to be descriptive. Second, we find that the sticky-expectations model of Bouchaud et al. (2019, The Journal of Finance, 74, 639–674) only partially explains the profitability premium. While on average, analysts' forecast revisions correct in the same direction as recent profitability, the profitability premium still exhibits a strong relationship to the non-sticky component of analysts' forecast revisions. Third, institutional investors trade profitability-based signals but do so with a delay, likely contributing to the premium. Overall, our evidence favours the explanation that the profitability premium is related to investor mispricing of potential downside risk and provides greater clarity on recent findings in the literature.

Joint dynamics of stock returns and cash flows: A time‐varying present‐value framework

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Abstract

This paper proposes a novel time-varying present-value model to analyze the joint dynamics of stock returns and cash flows periodically. We use a nonparametric time-varying vector autoregressive model to examine the economic implications of the time-varying present-value model. By conducting several nonparametric tests, we reject the stability of multivariate forecasting models and the null that stock returns and cash flows are simultaneously unpredictable in any given period. Additional bootstrap analyses show that under the null of unpredictable returns, dividend growth is highly predictable. Finally, the proposed time-varying present-value framework holds robustly for both the dividend–price ratio and the earnings–price ratio.

Overselling corporate social responsibility

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Abstract

We show that firms hype up their corporate social responsibility (CSR) narratives during the turn-of-the-year earnings conference calls to project an overly responsible public image of their firms. This previously unexplored phenomenon does not appear to be related to past, current, and future CSR engagements and cannot be explained by observed time-varying firm attributes and unobserved time-invariant firm and CEO attributes. We find that the fourth-quarter CSR narrative hike is more pronounced among firms that are (ex ante) expected to do more corporate good as well as firms embedded in dirty industries, but less prevalent among firms facing elevated product-market threats. Although elevated CSR narrative is associated with positive short-term market reaction and lower near-term stock price crash risk, such behavior tends to reduce financial report readability and leads to lower equity valuation in the longer term. Our analyses suggest that CSR narrative hike at the turn-of-the-year is a pervasive phenomenon in the corporate landscape and may have valuation and governance implications.