Bears and numbers : investigating whether short-sellers exploit accounting-based pricing anomalies

Abstract

This paper examines whether short-sellers (bears) exploit post-earnings-announcement-drift (PEAD) and the accruals anomaly. I first find that short interest is higher during the period that follows a negative earnings surprise and, to a lesser extent, the announcement of earnings that contains an abnormal income-increasing accrual component. Second, holding both anomalies constant, I find that prices decline more quickly in the presence of higher short interest. However, I do not find that higher short interest improves the pricing of information about future earnings contained in current earnings.