A persistent (but overlooked) feature of the cross-sectional distribution of quarterly earnings announcement returns is that the measured earnings surprise and share price response to that surprise are often in the opposite direction. Extending Kinney, Burgstahler and Martin [2002], we provide evidence on the prevalence, determinants, and consequences of contrarian stock returns at the earnings announcement date. Using the most recent I/B/E/S consensus EPS forecast as our earnings benchmark, we find that contrarian returns occur for roughly 40 percent of the more than 230,000 quarterly earnings announcements that comprise our sample. They are only slightly less prevalent in extreme earnings surprise deciles, and are evident each quarter during 1985-2005. The incidence of contrarian returns is statistically related to: ldquo;noiserdquo; in the measured earnings surprise (stale I/B/E/S consensus forecasts, pre-announcement stock returns, and the presence of GAAP exclusions); and ldquo;noiserdquo; in the share price response to announced earnings (discordant revenue changes, discordant earnings forecast revisions, return volatility, bid-ask spread and discordant prior quarter earnings surprises). Finally, contrarian stocks exhibit little post-earnings-announcement drift.

David Dreman's name is synonymous with the term "contrarian investing," and his contrarian strategies have been proven winners year after year. His techniques have spawned countless imitators, most of whom pay lip service to the buzzword "contrarian," but few can match his performance. His Kemper-Dreman High Return Fund has been the leader since its inception in 1988 -- the number one equity-income fund among all 208 ranked by Lipper Analytical Services, Inc. Dreman is also one of a handful of money managers whose clients have beaten the runaway market over the past five, ten, and fifteen years. Now, as the longest bull market in the history of the stock market winds down, there is increasing volatility and a great deal of uncertainty. This is the climate that tests the mettle of the pros, the worries of the average investor, and the success of David Dreman's brilliant new strategies for the next millennium. Contrarian Investment Strategies: The Next Generation shows investors how to outperform professional money managers and profit from potential Wall Street panics -- all in Dreman's trademark style, which The New York Times calls "witty and clear as a silver bell." Dreman reveals a proven, systematic, and safe way to beat the market by buying stocks of good companies when they are currently out of favor. At the heart of his book is a fundamental psychological insight: investors overreact. Dreman demonstrates how investors consistently overvalue the so-called "best" stocks and undervalue the so-called "worst" stocks, and how earnings and other surprises affect the best and worst stocks in opposite ways. Since surprises are a way of life in the market, Dreman shows you how to profit from these surprises with his ingenious new techniques, most of which have been developed in the nineties. You'll learn: Why contrarian stocks offer extra protection in bear markets, as well as delivering superior returns when the bull roars. Why a high dividend yield is just as important for the aggressive investor as it is for "widows and orphans." Why owning Treasury bills and government bonds -- the "safest investments" for centuries -- is like being fully margined at the top of the 1929 market. Why Initial Public Offerings are a guaranteed loser's game. Why you should avoid Nasdaq ("the market of the next hundred years") like the plague. Why crisis, panic, and even market downturns are the contrarian investor's best friend. Why the chances of hitting a home run using the Street's best research are worse than being the big winner in the New York State Lottery. Based on cutting-edge research and irrefutable statistics, David Dreman's revolutionary techniques will benefit professionals and laymen alike.

Using a large panel of U.S. brokerage accounts trades and positions, we show that a large fraction of retail investors trade as contrarians after large earnings surprises, especially for loser stocks, and that such contrarian trading contributes to post earnings announcement drift (PEAD) and price momentum. Indeed, when we double-sort by momentum portfolios and retail trading flows, PEAD and momentum are only present in the top two quintiles of retail trading intensity. Finer sorts confirm the results, as do sorts by firm size and institutional ownership level. We show that the investors in our sample are representative of the universe of U.S. retail traders, and that the magnitude of the phenomena we describe indicate a quantitively substantial role of retail investors in generating momentum. Alternative hypotheses, such as the disposition effect and stale limit orders, do not explain retail contrarian trading. Younger traders are more likely to be contrarian, and a firm's dividend yield, leverage, size, book to market, and analyst coverage are associated with the fraction of contrarian trades they face around earnings announcements. Attentive investors are more likely to be contrarians.

Introduces important new findings in psychology to demonstrate why most investment strategies are flawed, outlining atypical strategies designed to prevent over- and under-valuations while crash-proofing a portfolio.

The rationale for the superior performance of contrarian investment strategies remains a matter of lively debate. The orthodox view maintains that such strategies generate higher returns because they are fundamentally riskier, whereas the behaviorists suggest that the superior performance is a result of systematic errors in investors' expectations about the future. If the behavioral view is accepted, then the debate centers on what the underlying source(s) of such errors are 'naive extrapolation of past performance or biased analysts' earnings forecasts. Using stocks listed on the London Stock Exchange, we found evidence consistent with the view that errors in expectations are more likely to be a result of biases in analysts' earnings forecasts than naive extrapolation of the past. We also found that positive and negative earnings surprises have an asymmetrical effect on the returns of low- and high-rated stocks. Positive earnings surprises have a disproportionately large positive impact on stocks that are priced low relative to four measures of operating performance; negative surprises have a relatively benign effect on such stocks.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2008 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 1.1, EBS European Business School gGmbH (Finance), language: English, abstract: Many authors have already studied about stock price reactions after earnings announcements yet, which is because of the importance of earnings announcements, in particular quarterly earnings announcements, for many investors. However, all major studies concerning this topic deal with long-term scenarios, the stock's price performance is measured for a time period of at least three quarters. Due to the fact that there are many investors, especially institutional investors such as hedge funds that trade stocks much more frequently, the existing studies are not relevant for them. This paper studies stock price reactions around quarterly earnings announcements for companies listed in Deutscher Aktienindex (DAX) or Midcap DAX (MDAX) with respect to changes of the company's full-year outlook and of earnings surprise regarding analyst consensus forecast within ten days before and after the announcement date. Hence, this paper aims to analyse short-term reaction to quarterly earnings announcements, which are of relevance for all investors, whose investment strategy is, at least partially, focussing on the short-term performance. The main target group of this analysis are therefore hedge funds and investors that run short-term strategies. Due to the fact that the widespread Event Study Methodology is focused on the long-term, it is irrelevant for this analysis.

This study documents that contrarian investment strategies offer superior returns because these strategies exploit investors' expectation errors. The underlying source of these expectation errors may be due to biases on analysts' earnings forecasts. We found both positive earnings surprises and negative earnings surprises significantly affect subsequent returns. Negative earnings surprises have less impact on value stocks relative to glamour stocks. This may contribute to the superior performance from value strategies. We also investigate whether investor sentiment can be an alternative source of value stocks' superior performance. Our results conclude that when the investor sentiment is higher, the value stocks earn significant higher return than glamour stocks.