The literature on accounting anomalies and fundamental analysis provides important insights into the behavior of stock prices and the relation between accounting numbers and firm value. My review discusses five key topics from this literature: (1) discriminating between risk and mispricing explanations for return anomalies; (2) estimating the implied cost of capital; (3) inferring investors’ perceptions of the earnings process; (4) understanding the importance of trading costs and firm size; and (5) improving the construction of characteristic-based trading strategies. My discussion highlights important challenges facing the literature and offers suggestions for improving empirical tests.

The returns and stock holdings of institutional investors from 1980 to 2007 provide little evidence of stock-picking skill. Institutions as a whole closely mimic the market portfolio, with pre-cost returns that have nearly perfect correlation with the value-weighted index and an insignificant CAPM alpha of 0.08% quarterly. Institutions also show little tendency to bet on any of the main characteristics known to predict stock returns, such as book-to-market, momentum, or accruals. While particular groups of institutions have modest stock-picking skill relative to the CAPM, their performance is almost entirely explained by the book-to-market and momentum effects in returns. Further, no group holds a portfolio that deviates efficiently from the market portfolio.

This article studies whether financial ratios like dividend yield can predict aggregate stock returns. Predictive regressions are subject to small-sample biases, but the correction used by prior studies can substantially understate forecasting power. I show that dividend yield predicts market returns during the period 1946–2000, as well as in various subsamples. Book-to-market and the earnings-price ratio predict returns during the shorter sample 1963–2000. The evidence remains strong despite the unusual price run-up in recent years.

This paper examines the time-series relations among expected return, risk, and book-to-market (B/M) at the portfolio level. I find that B/M predicts economically and statistically significant time-variation in expected stock returns. Further, B/M is strongly associated with changes in risk, as measured by the Fama and French (1993) (Journal of Financial Economics, 33, 3–56) three-factor model. After controlling for risk, B/M provides no incremental information about expected returns. The evidence suggests that the three-factor model explains time-varying expected returns better than a characteristics-based model.

This article studies momentum in stock returns, focusing on the role of industry, size, and book-to-market (B/M) factors. Size and B/M portfolios exhibit momentum as strong as that in individual stocks and industries. The size and B/M portfolios are well diversified, so momentum cannot be attributed to firm- or industry-specific returns. Further, industry, size, and B/M portfolios are negatively autocorrelated and cross-serially correlated over intermediate horizons. The evidence suggests that stocks covary “too strongly” with each other. I argue that excess covariance, not underreaction, explains momentum in the portfolios.

This article studies momentum in stock returns, focusing on the role of industry, size, and book-to-market (B/M) factors. Size and B/M portfolios exhibit momentum as strong as that in individual stocks and industries. The size and B/M portfolios are well diversified, so momentum cannot be attributed to firm- or industry-specific returns. Further, industry, size, and B/M portfolios are negatively autocorrelated and cross-serially correlated over intermediate horizons. The evidence suggests that stocks covary "too strongly" with each other. I argue that excess covariance, not underreaction, explains momentum in the portfolios.

We study the investment–cash flow sensitivities of U.S. firms from 1971–2009. Our tests extend the literature in several key ways and provide strong evidence that cash flow explains investment beyond its correlation with q . A dollar of current- and prior-year cash flow is associated with $0.32 of additional investment for firms that are the least likely to be constrained and $0.63 of additional investment for firms that are the most likely to be constrained, even after correcting for measurement error in q . Our results suggest that financing constraints and free-cash-flow problems are important for investment decisions.

Higher accruals are associated with lower subsequent earnings. We show this phenomenon can be explained by the way sales, profits, and working capital respond to changes in a firm's product markets. Empirically, high accruals predict high subsequent sales growth but a long-lasting drop in both profits and profitability. Accruals also predict an increase in future competition, suggesting that accruals are correlated with abnormally high—and, in equilibrium, transitory—true profitability that attracts new entrants to the industry. Overall, the predictive power of accruals is better explained by product-market effects than by measurement error in accruals or diminishing returns from investment.

ABSTRACT This paper studies institutional investors’ incentives to be engaged shareholders. In 2017, the average institution gains an extra $129,000 in annual management fees if a stockholding increases 1% in value, considering both the direct effect on assets under management and the indirect effect on subsequent fund flows. The estimates range from $19,600 for investments in small firms to $307,600 for investments in large firms. Institutional shareholders in one firm often gain when the firm's competitors do well, by virtue of institutions’ holdings in those firms, but the impact of common ownership is modest in the most concentrated industries.