Diminishing Role of Accounting Information for Investment Decisions

The level of stock prices on capital markets no longer reflects only the financial health of companies, and investors do not carry out their investment decisions based on classical fundamental analyses using accounting information. The level of the diminishing role of accounting information for investment decisions was proven by Lev and Zarowin with a sample of 1,300 companies during the years 1976 – 1996. This paper further extends this analysis and verifies the validity of the original findings until the year 2011. The low importance and impact of accounting information was confirmed in the period 1994 – 2011, but the decline in importance significantly slowed down or in some cases even stopped completely. Surprisingly, the association between stock price and change in book value plus earnings has been found to be significantly improving. This trend should be subjected to further analysis