Using a large sample of U.S. commercial banks from 1994 to 2019, we find that loan fair values are highly relevant for depositor decision making. A one‐standard‐deviation decrease in loan fair value performance is associated with more than 10% lower uninsured deposit flows than the sample average. Information in fair values about loan credit quality is quite limited and cannot account for the bulk of the relevance. Instead, consistent with models of bank fragility, the relevance seems to stem more from information on the decline in loan liquidation values, triggering panic‐based withdrawals motivated by (self‐fulfilling) expectations of withdrawals by other depositors. The findings inform the cost‐benefit tradeoff of reporting loan fair values.

Firms’ use of accounting discretion to report a smooth earnings profile is commonly believed to be pervasive. We examine whether smoothing, at least partly, reflects managerial attempts to avert unhealthy pressures from outsiders who cannot fully disentangle the impact of transitory shocks from sustainable trends in value creation. Using variation in firms’ ability to hedge foreign currency (forex) exposure through derivatives, we find that firms are less likely to smooth earnings when they can better shield their business from extraneous forex fluctuations. Our findings inform the debate on discretion in accounting rules and illustrate how markets that facilitate efficient reallocation of risk can shape the informational properties of accounting output.