Operational and Performance Research in Accounting and Auditing

Operational and Performance Research in Accounting and Auditing

Comparative study on the value relevance of annual and intermediate financial statements (with emphasis on quarterly, six-month and nine-month financial statements)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
1 Assistant Prof. in Accounting, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran
2 Instructor in Accounting, Higher Education Complex of Saravan, Saravan, Iran
3 MSc. in Accounting, University of Sistan and Baluchistan, Zahedan, Iran
Abstract
Investors regard information timelier when making financial decisions because the historic information holds an effect on the stock price and will not yield profits; accordingly, faster access to accounting information exerts a positive effect on optimal decision making and enhances the potential profitability. By sufficiently reducing the time intervals for providing information to the capital market, interim financial statements, assign a suitable basis for the relative efficiency of the capital market. In attendance, the critical question is whether interim financial statements possess a more critical impact on market value than annual statements? The society of the study consisted of three, six, nine months and annual audited statements of 85 firms in TSE during 2013-2018, totally including 2040 Observation. The results of the hypothesis confirmed accounting profit maintain a significant and direct link with the market value in both interim and annual reports. This direct correlation is confirmed for the book value in all interim reports but not in annual statements. Further, the effect of book value and accounting profit of all financial interim statements on the market value of firms is more than annual financial statements. The findings indicate accounting profit is more informative than the book value for financial decision making. Comparably, interim financial statements comprise more relevant to annual financial statements; conceivably because interim financial statements of each year hold a high overlap with annual financial statements in the past year, which result in a more reliable basis for making financial decisions from the shareholders' point of view.
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