재무분석가의 영업현금흐름예측여부와 이익예측 정확성

Abstract

Recently, a significant number of analysts tend to issue operating cash flow forecasts as well as earnings forecasts. This study investigates whether analysts’ issuance of operating cash flow forecasts enhances accuracy of their earnings forecasts. Some argue that, to forecast operating cash flows, analysts should predict components of earnings–cash flows and accruals, and they should have more comprehensive knowledge on firm’s financial statements and the relation of accounts of each financial statement. If this is the case, analysts who issue operating cash flow forecasts would provide more correct earnings forecasts than analysts who do not issue. Call et al.(2009; 2013) document that accuracy of earnings forecast is higher for analysts who issue operating cash flow forecasts than analysts who do not issue. They also argue that operating cash flow forecasts are informative by showing that the stock market reacts to the change in operating cash flow forecasts. Their results support the demand hypothesis that analysts provide operating cash flow forecasts in order to satisfy users’ needs for additional information. On the other hand, analysts might provide operating cash flow forecasts just resulting from a preliminary extension of earnings forecast rather than from an undergoing precise and systematic process. For example, analysts might first forecast earnings and then forecast operating cash flows by just deducting depreciation and amortization from their earnings forecasts. If operating cash flow forecasts just result from an extension of earnings forecasts, earnings forecasts by analysts who issue operating cash flow forecasts cannot be more accurate than earnings forecasts by analysts who do not issue operating cash flow forecasts. Givoly et al.(2009) argue that operating cash flow forecasts are not obtained in sophisticated manners and they are much less accurate than earnings forecasts. They also report that operating cash flow forecasts are just weakly related to stock returns, and repute Call et al.(2009) by arguing that operating cash flows forecast are not informative to investors. The debate on usefulness of cash flow forecasts continues in the literature(Call et al. 2013, Givoly et al. 2013, and Bilinski 2014). We examine whether analysts’ earnings forecasts accompanied by cash flow forecasts are more accurate than those not accompanied by cash flow forecasts. Our sample consists of Korean listed companies which have analyst forecasts data provided by I/B/E/S detail history database during the period of 2004 to 2010. Forty percent of analysts in our sample issues both earnings and cash flow forecasts, while sixty percent of it issues only earnings forecasts. We regress earnings forecasts error on cash flow forecasts issuance dummy variable with other explanatory variables. The coefficient on the cash flow forecasts dummy is not statistically significant from zero. In additional tests, we examine whether analysts who issue operating cash flow forecasts have better understandings on persistence of cash flows and accruals than those who do not issue. A prior study finds that analysts underestimate persistence of both cash flows and accruals. If analysts who issue operating cash flow forecasts have more comprehensive knowledge and undergo more rigorous process in order to forecast earnings and cash flows, they would less underestimate persistence of earnings components, compared to analysts who do not issue operating cash flow forecasts. We find no evidence that analysts who issue operating cash flow forecasts better understand persistence of cash flows and earnings than analysts who do not issue. In robustness tests, we use propensity-score-matching method and find that there are no significant differences in accuracy between analyst earnings forecasts with cash flow forecasts and those without cash flow forecasts. Overall, empirical findings suggest that earnings forecasts accompanied by operating cash flows are not likely to result from a more sophisticated or rigorous process. Our findings provide additional evidence on the dispute of analysts’ issuance of operating cash flow forecasts enhances accuracy of their earnings forecasts.