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• Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2019

  Facebook's Libra: The Privatization of Money?

  Marco Di Maggio, Ethan Rouen, Georgios Serafeim and Aldo Sesia

  Citation:

  Di Maggio, Marco, Ethan Rouen, Georgios Serafeim, and Aldo Sesia. "Facebook's Libra: The Privatization of Money?" Harvard Business School Case 120-021, October 2019.  View Details

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• Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

  Core Earnings: New Data and Evidence

  Ethan Rouen, Eric C. So, Charles C.Y. Wang, Ethan Rouen, Eric C. So and Charles C.Y. Wang

  Using a novel dataset that comprehensively classifies the quantitative financial disclosures in firms' 10-Ks, including those hidden in the footnotes and the MD&A, we show that disclosures of non-operating and less persistent income-statement items are both frequent and economically significant, and increasingly so over time. Adjusting GAAP earnings to exclude these items creates a measure of core earnings that is highly persistent and that forecasts future performance. Street earnings for firms that meet or just beat analyst expectations are more likely to selectively exclude these items. Analysts and market participants also are slow to impound the implications of these items. Trading strategies that exploit cross-sectional differences in firms' transitory earnings produce abnormal returns of 7% to 10% per year.

  Keywords: core earnings; transitory earnings; non-operating earnings; quantitative disclosures; Equity Valuation; big data; Business Earnings;

  Citation:

  Rouen, Ethan, Eric C. So, and Charles C.Y. Wang. "Core Earnings: New Data and Evidence." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-047, October 2019. (Revised November 2019.)  View Details

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• Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

  Core Earnings: New Data and Evidence

  Ethan Rouen, Eric C. So, Charles C.Y. Wang, Ethan Rouen, Eric C. So and Charles C.Y. Wang

  Using a novel dataset that comprehensively classifies the quantitative financial disclosures in firms' 10-Ks, including those hidden in the footnotes and the MD&A, we show that disclosures of non-operating and less persistent income-statement items are both frequent and economically significant, and increasingly so over time. Adjusting GAAP earnings to exclude these items creates a measure of core earnings that is highly persistent and that forecasts future performance. Street earnings for firms that meet or just beat analyst expectations are more likely to selectively exclude these items. Analysts and market participants also are slow to impound the implications of these items. Trading strategies that exploit cross-sectional differences in firms' transitory earnings produce abnormal returns of 7% to 10% per year.

  Keywords: core earnings; transitory earnings; non-operating earnings; quantitative disclosures; Equity Valuation; big data; Business Earnings;

  Citation:

  Rouen, Ethan, Eric C. So, and Charles C.Y. Wang. "Core Earnings: New Data and Evidence." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-047, October 2019. (Revised November 2019.)  View Details

  CiteView DetailsSSRNSSRN Read Now

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