Further Evidence on Analyst and Investor Mis-Weighting of Prior Period Cash Flows and Accruals

Prior studies find that (i) investors over-weight (or over-estimate the persistence of) past accruals and under-weight past cash flows, and (ii) analysts over-weight past accruals. We study financial analysts' and investors' assessments of the persistence of accruals and cash flows after explicitly controlling for the negative correlation between accruals and cash flows. We find that both analysts and investors under-weight past cash flows but over-weight past accruals. The accrual and cash flow effects are distinct from each other in the sense that when we control for one effect, the other effect continues to be significant. However, the cash flow effect on both forecast errors and future stock returns is much stronger, in terms of magnitude, than the accrual effect. The strength of the cash flow effect has not been generally recognized in the literature.