Investigation of the Firm Book-To-Price Operating and Leverage Components Effect in Stock Returns in Tehran Stock Exchange

Fama and French (1992) observe that book-to-price (B/P) ratios are positively correlated with subsequent stock returns, a relation that has come to be known as the book-to-price effect and Penman, Richardson, and Tuna (2007) explains that The B/P ratio can be decomposed into an enterprise book-to-price (that pertains to operations and potentially reflects operating risk) and a leverage component (that reflects financing risk). Also, this paper is decomposed the B/P ratio into operating (NOA/PNOA) and leverage (ND/P) components and examined the components of book-to-price effect in stock returns with using annual cross-sectional that explains both the components effect. The final sample used in this analysis consists of 1,411 firm-years (225 companies) for the years 1998-2007. The empirical analysis shows that the enterprise book-to-price ratio is positively (not significantly) related to subsequent stock returns but, the leverage component of B/P is negatively associated with future stock returns (excluding firm-year observations with NOA/PNOA ≥1). Further, investigation shows that the beta is positively related to subsequent stock returns but, the size is negatively associated with future stock returns that both higher than leverage component of B/P.