Information Content of Earnings and Operating Cash Flows: Evidence from the Tehran Stock Exchange

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to evaluate the relative and incremental information content of earnings and operating cash flows in the companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. Moreover, the present study investigates the loss effect on the information content of earnings and operating cash flows. For this purpose, we investigate and analyze a sample of 475 firm-years from the companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during the years 2006-2010.The results indicate that, the earnings have more information content than operating cash flows in explaining stock returns, in addition, earnings model is preferable in explaining stock returns than operating cash flows model. Also, results show that earnings have positive effect and loss has negative effect on earnings information content and operating cash flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]