Effects of Earnings Announcement on the Share Price for Firms Listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange

Abstract

This study was undertaken with a view of establishing whether earnings announcements affect the stock prices of firms listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange for the years 2009-2013.The objective of study was to determine whether the earnings announcements generate abnormal returns and the duration of abnormal returns of firms listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange. Data was extracted from the NSE Daily stock and NSE Handbook 2009-2013 and analyzed using E-Views and EXCEL. The graphs and the tables confirm a turning point in residual abnormal returns around the date of earnings announcements for most of the companies in the sample population. The findings indicate movements around the earnings announcement both pre and post announcement. These objectives were achieved by studying a sample of 19 firms listed at the NSE having made earnings announcement in the period of the study. The daily adjusted prices for the sample stocks were recorded during the event window of 17 days, 8 days before and after the announcements. The study adopted a descriptive research design. The event study methodology was employed to determine the effects of the earnings announcement. The sample population posted both negative and positive abnormal returns around the earnings announcement dates which show how the stock prices have reacted to the earnings announcement event. The above findings show that statistically negative abnormal returns were observed in the post and pre earnings announcements of firms listed at the Nairobi Stock Exchange. Given that a number of issues to be deliberated at earnings announcements are public information prior to earnings announcements and one would not expect revision in share prices that result into abnormal gains or losses. In which case abnormal gains or losses is only realizable if good or bad news emerges from the earnings announcements