We document a significant positive relation between earnings announcement idiosyncratic volatility and stock returns in the 10-day window before future earnings announcements. The average of risk-adjusted return differences between stocks with the highest earnings announcement idiosyncratic...

We document a significant positive relation between earnings announcement idiosyncratic volatility and stock returns in the 10-day window before future earnings announcements. The average of risk-adjusted return differences between stocks with the highest earnings announcement idiosyncratic...

Earnings announcements present a clear risk to investors and, under rational asset pricing theory, such risk should be consistently priced in stocks. However, we find that stocks with high earnings announcement risk earn significantly higher returns only during months when firms have earnings or...

Because stock price generally deviates from the intrinsic value, stock price is a noisy indicator of the intrinsic value. As an expected return proxy, the implied cost of capital (ICC)—the internal rate of return that equates the noisy stock price to discounted expected future dividends—thus...