Narrow Results

We investigate the accrual anomaly by examining the stock market reaction around the release of short interest information for firms with high accruals. We show that arbitrage activity, proxied by short interest, focuses on mispricing of firms with high accruals. In particular, we provide evidence that high accrual firms experience significant negative returns when high short interest levels are announced. In contrast, the announcement effect does not vary by short selling activity for low accrual firms. Our findings are consistent with the view that the accrual anomaly is due to overpricing.

We study three widely used liquidity measures and find that they all carry significant premiums beyond the size, book-to-market, and momentum effects. Although liquidity as a risk factor bears a significant return premium, it is better characterized by a characteristic-based model. Further analysis shows that (1) although the premium persists for up to five years following formation, it diminishes over time and becomes insignificant in the post-1960 period; (2) the premium is larger for stocks with higher idiosyncratic risk. Thus, the empirical results provide some evidence that supports the mispricing argument.