The Impact of Real and Accrual Earning on Stock Market Value by Sobel Test

Earning and their measurement and identification methods have always been regarded as an important financial challenge and paradigm when investigating the factors affecting capital markets and explaining the behavior of stock prices. The different needs of accounting information users on the one hand, and the various reasons and motives of firms to achieve their goals on the other hand, have led to manipulation of profits and losses. This study aimed at comparing the impact of real and accrual earnings on the market value of equity using the Sobel test. To this end, 131 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange from 2007 to 2017 were enrolled. According to the hypothesis testing results, the use of accrual earnings, in addition to a direct impact on the market value of equity, indirectly affects it through the mediating role of abnormal stock returns. No significant relationship, however, was observed between real earnings and the market value of equity. In other words, the mediating role of abnormal stock returns was not confirmed by the Sobel test. The systematic risk level of firms had no effect on the choice of earnings management approaches with the aim of influencing abnormal returns and the market value of equity. In other words, investors disregarded company risk in their decisions as a potential factor effective in capital market expectations regarding the changes in stock returns and prices.