The Assessment of Cash Flow and Accrual Components Ability in Forecasting Abnormal Earnings and Explaining Value of Companies Listed in Tehran Stock Exchange

In this paper the ability of cash flow and accrual components in forecasting abnormal earnings and explaining values of companies have been evaluated. For this purpose four hypotheses are disgnd. For hypotheses testing, three linear information valuation models based on the framework of Faltam-Ohlson Model are used. Each linear structure reflects a level of earnings disaggregation. In the first linear model, none of the earnings components is included. In the second linear model, operating cash flows, aggregated accruals and in the third linear model, operating cash flows and components of accruals are included as the components of earnings.For estimating the models, we use financial data of 63 sample companies and pooled data method for the period of 1998 to 2007. For testing of the research hypotheses we use multi-variable regression.The results indicate that the operating cash flows and aggregated accruals have explanatory power for company value and abnormal earnings. Other findings of this research indicate that the components of accruals have the ability to predict abnormal earnings. But in the level of the selected sample only some of the coefficients of accruals components in valuation equation are statistically significant. Further analyses, show inconsistent results among different industries, due to the different nature and amount of cash flows and accrual components of earnings in various industries.