توزین شواهد رابطه بین فعالیت های تامین مالی شرکت های بزرگ خارجی،پذیره نویسی و بازده سهام

Bradshaw, Richardson, and Sloan (BRS) find a negative relation between their comprehensive measure of corporate financing activities and future stock returns and future profitability. Noticing that accounting accruals are increases in net operating assets on a company's balance sheet, we question whether it is possible to distinguish between the ‘external financing anomaly’ documented by BRS and the ‘accrual anomaly’ first documented by Sloan [1996. Do stock prices fully reflect information in accruals and cash flows about future earnings? The Accounting Review 71, 289–315]. We show that once controlling for total accruals, the relation between external financing activities and future stock returns is attenuated and not statistically significant. These findings are consistent with Richardson and Sloan [2003. External financing, capital investment and future stock returns. Working Paper, University of Pennsylvania and University of Michigan].

Bradshaw et al. (2006, hereafter BRS) examine the relation between firms’ external financing activities, future stock returns, future profitability and analysts’ forecasts. BRS summarize that, “The key innovation of our research design is the use of statement of cash flows data to construct a comprehensive and parsimonious measure of the net amount of cash generated by corporate financing activities” (p. 1). In other words, BRS’ major contribution is their focus on net external financing activities rather than individual components of corporate financing activities (e.g., debt versus equity) chosen by firms. In addition to investigating future stock returns and profitability following firms’ corporate financing activities, BRS analyze analysts’ short- and long-term earnings forecasts, growth forecasts, stock recommendations, and target prices. Overall, BRS ask an interesting and intriguing question that goes beyond the traditional pecking-order theory. Their primary findings are that there exists a negative and statistically significant relation between net external financing and future stock returns, and future profitability, and a positive relation with optimism in analysts’ forecasts. These results, in turn, imply that the relevant information in financing activities is that the firm raised (or repaid) funds, rather than the specific means by which the firm raised (e.g., debt versus equity) or repaid (dividends and stock repurchases versus interest and repayment of debt) funds. Using a trading strategy based on the overall measure of net external financing, BRS document that such a hedge portfolio generates an annual return of 15.5%. This return exceeds the hedge portfolio returns based on the individual components of net external financing. The overall results on the relation between external financing and future stock returns and future profitability imply that investors do not correctly infer the negative relation between financing activities and future performance. BRS investigate both investors’ and analysts’ responses to firms’ financing activities. Their research is designed to distinguish between risk and misvaluations as potential explanations for the association between future stock returns and firms’ corporate financing activities. They find a systematic positive relation between net external financing and optimism in analysts’ forecasts. Furthermore, the results suggest that analysts’ optimism is related to the type of security issued: over-optimism for debt issuance is restricted to short-term earnings forecasts, while over-optimism for equity issuance is also related to long-term earnings forecasts, growth, stock recommendations and target prices. The above findings lead BRS to conclude that analysts play a ‘central role’ in the overpricing of security issuances. Based on their findings, BRS offer the following interpretations and implications: (i) “…consistent with the misvaluation hypothesis, the predictable stock returns are directly related to predictable errors in analysts’ earnings forecasts…. Overall, the results are consistent with the hypothesis that firms time their corporate financing activities to exploit the temporary misvaluation of their securities in capital markets.” (ii) “…our results suggest that the negative stock returns following new security issuances are primarily attributable to firm misvaluations rather than wealth transfers between stockholders and bondholders… we show that changes in debt are negatively related to future returns. This evidence is consistent with the firm misvaluation hypothesis, but inconsistent with the wealth transfer hypothesis.” (iii) “…analysts could self-select into covering the particular issuing firms that they naively forecast to have the best future prospects. Second, management could self-select into issuing securities during periods in which their inside information indicates that analysts’ forecasts are most optimistic. Third, conflicts stemming from incentives to generate investment banking and/or brokerage business could lead analysts to intentionally bias their forecasts.” By design, however, BRS’ analysis is closely related to the ‘accrual anomaly’ literature: the cash flow identity implies that financing and operating cash flows are negatively related. Moreover, operating cash flows equal net income minus accruals. In other words, accounting accruals are increases in the amount of net operating assets on a company's balance sheet. As a result, it is important to establish whether BRS's findings complement or subsume the results of the ‘accrual anomaly’ (Sloan, 1996). Consequently, our discussion focuses on two key questions: (1) whether financing per se rather than the specific financing vehicles chosen matter, and (2) whether the results differ from what is known and has been referred to as the ‘accrual anomaly.’ Section 2 discusses the analysis of BRS. The sample selection is presented in Section 3. Section 4 focuses on the relation between external financing activities and accruals whereas the relation between financing activities and future performance is discussed in Section 5. Section 6 discusses the relation between analysts’ forecast properties and external financing activities. Conclusions and suggestions for future research are presented in Section 7.

As stated in the introduction, BRS’ major contribution is the use of statement of cash flows data to construct a comprehensive and parsimonious measure of the net amount of cash generated by corporate financing activities and examine its relation with future stock returns, future performance and analysts’ forecast properties. This is an intriguing research endeavor and they provide some interesting results. However, our analysis raises the question of the interpretation of some of the results. In particular, we argue that it is difficult to distinguish between the well-documented accrual anomaly (Sloan, 1996) and the external financing anomaly which is the focus in BRS. How can one tease out the accrual anomaly effect and provide convincing evidence that the external financing anomaly is, indeed, a distinct phenomenon? This task still remains to be addressed. We believe that the interplay between BRS’ results and our discussion provide some clear avenues for future research. For example, BRS provide evidence that both investors and financial analysts seem not to fully incorporate the implications of firms’ external financing activities into their expectations. A possible avenue for future research is to disentangle the influence of the analysts’ overoptimistic forecasts from investors’ assessments of the impact of firms’ financing activities. Are these two observations simply the consequence of investors’ reliance on analysts’ forecasts or are these two distinct effects?