Earnings disaggregation and analysts＇ forecasts

Accounting concepts dictate that separately disclosed components should contain separate useful information. This paper examines the relations between income statement components and analysts＇ earnings forecasts and forecast errors. Regressions explaining earnings forecasts using earnings components provide a better fit than regression using just aggregate income to explain forecasts. We interpret this as consistent with the hypothesis that analysts use incremental information in components not available in aggregate income. However, additional tests based on predictability of forecast errors indicate that analysts do not incorporate all information available in components into earnings forecasts. In addition, this inefficiency appears to increase at longer forecast horizons.

Improvements onthe Earnings Forecast Model——Based on Correlation between Financial Ratio, Auditor Opinion and Future Earnings

This paper aims to find evidence for the improvements on the present earnings forecast models through analyzing the correlation among financial ratios, auditor opinion of listed companies and their future earnings. This paper uses two statistical regression methods including Logistic model and Linear model to examine the inner interaction between financial ratios and future earnings from qualitative and quantitative perspectives respectively. Empirical tests find that financial ratios, especially ROE, can help to predict future earnings. Then we add auditor opinion variable into Logistic model to test whether going concern opinion in the auditor reports can be helpful for earnings forecast. Result shows the degree of optimistic statement of going concern opinion is significantly correlated with future earnings but with the disturbance of earnings management.

The effect of earnings forecast precision on firm value and insider trading under voluntary disclosure in Taiwan

Taiwan changed its earnings forecast policy from mandatory to voluntary disclosure in 2005. In this study, the inferences of voluntary earnings forecast are examined based on forecasts issued by listed firms. This study suspects that insiders have a temptation to strategically manipulate financial forecast information to influence markets and thus receive extra rents. Under the new earnings forecast disclosure policy, the number of disclosing firm decreases but the precision of earnings forecast increases. The empirical result from dynamic panel data evidences the forecast error of voluntary disclosure may negatively impact firm values. Furthermore, there is a positive relationship between insiders＇ trading profit and manipulation of earnings forecasts. As volatility in insider manipulation increases, it is difficult for the investors to predict the real intention of insiders, and insiders may achieve greater benefits from trading. This study also observes that many listed companies hold investor conferences to provide earnings guidance in Taiwan. The reason may be that investor conference is more flexible and has less forecast error cost than the formal financial forecast. This study provides important insights into earnings forecast policy in emerging markets. The competent authority should improve corporate governance and develop monitoring functions to abate forecast manipulation.

The Efficiency of Markets in Response to Earnings Forecasts: The Case of China

This paper investigates the semi-strong form of efficiency of Chinese stock markets in response to earnings forecast announcement by employing the methodology of event study. The sample period is from January 2009 to January 2018, in total 564 event were examined. The reaction of markets to different types of new announcement is investigated and presented separately. Firstly, examination of positive and negative earnings forecast report shows that information shock brings a significant positive and negative returns during the event window. In addition, analysis of different sub-windows showed prices adjust to news quickly and effectively. However, no news announcements bring no significant shock to market, prices are not impacted by slight change forecasts. In general, empirical results provided evidences of semi-strong market efficiency. Earnings forecast announcements possess huge impact on market prices, therefore participants can make abnormal profit if they act on the information very quickly. However, beyond event window information becomes ineffective and does not possess any kind of content to make above market returns .

Long-Term Load Forecasting of Southern Governorates of Jordan Distribution Electric System

Load forecasting is vitally important for electric industry in the deregulated economy. This paper aims to face the power crisis and to achieve energy security in Jordan. Our participation is localized in the southern parts of Jordan including, Ma’an, Karak and Aqaba. The available statistical data about the load of southern part of Jordan are supplied by electricity Distribution Company. Mathematical and statistical methods attempted to forecast future demand by determining trends of past results and use the trends to extrapolate the curve demand in the future.

Spatial and temporal synthesized probability gain for middle and long-term earthquake forecast and its preliminary application

The principle of middle and long-term earthquake forecast model of spatial and temporal synthesized probability gain and the evaluation of forecast efficiency (R-values) of various forecast methods are introduced in this paper. The R-value method, developed by Xu (1989), is further developed here, and can be applied to more complicated cases. Probability gains in spatial and/or temporal domains and the R-values for different forecast methods are estimated in North China. The synthesized probability gain is then estimated as an example.

Study of Holocene glacier degradation in central Asia by isotopic methods for long-term forecast of climate changes

This article presents a summary of our studies of Holocene moraines and glaciers of the Tien-Shan, Pamir, and Himalaya moun- mills with the purpose of providing pattern regularity of the Holocene glaciation decomposition. We developed a method for ob- taining reliable radiocarbon dating of moraines with the use of autochthonous organic matter dispersed in fine-grained morainic material, as well there were shown new possibilities of isotope-oxygen and isotope-uranium analysis for the Holocene glaciations dynamics. We found that Holocene glaciations disintegrate stadiaUy according to the decaying principle, and seven main stages may be distinguished. We achieved the absolute dating of the first three stages, identifying these periods as 8,000, 5,000, and 3,400 years ago. The application of the above-mentioned isotope methods of the Holocene glaciations and moraines study will allow re- searchers to improve the offered model of the Holocene glaciations disintegration; it will be great contribution to salvation of the problem of long-term climatic and glaciations forecast.

Long-Term Electricity Demand Forecasting for Malaysia Using Artificial Neural Networks in the Presence of Input and Model Uncertainties

Electricity demand is also known as load in electric power system.This article presents a Long-Term Load Forecasting(LTLF)approach for Malaysia.An Artificial Neural Network(ANN)of 5-layer Multi-Layered Perceptron(MLP)structure has been designed and tested for this purpose.Uncertainties of input variables and ANN model were introduced to obtain the prediction for years 2022 to 2030.Pearson correlation was used to examine the input variables for model construction.The analysis indicates that Primary Energy Supply(PES),population,Gross Domestic Product(GDP)and temperature are strongly correlated.The forecast results by the proposed method(henceforth referred to as UQ-SNN)were compared with the results obtained by a conventional Seasonal Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average(SARIMA)model.The R^(2)scores for UQ-SNN and SARIMA are 0.9994 and 0.9787,respectively,indicating that UQ-SNN is more accurate in capturing the non-linearity and the underlying relationships between the input and output variables.The proposed method can be easily extended to include other input variables to increase the model complexity and is suitable for LTLF.With the available input data,UQ-SNN predicts Malaysia will consume 207.22 TWh of electricity,with standard deviation(SD)of 6.10 TWh by 2030.

Nonlinear Differential Equation of Macroeconomic Dynamics for Long-Term Forecasting of Economic Development

In this article we derive a general differential equation that describes long-term economic growth in terms of cyclical and trend components. Equation is based on the model of non-linear accelerator of induced investment. A scheme is proposed for obtaining approximate solutions of nonlinear differential equation by splitting solution into the rapidly oscillating business cycles and slowly varying trend using Krylov-Bogoliubov-Mitropolsky averaging. Simplest modes of the economic system are described. Characteristics of the bifurcation point are found and bifurcation phenomenon is interpreted as loss of stability making the economic system available to structural change and accepting innovations. System being in a nonequilibrium state has a dynamics with self-sustained undamped oscillations. The model is verified with economic development of the US during the fifth Kondratieff cycle (1982-2010). Model adequately describes real process of economic growth in both quantitative and qualitative aspects. It is one of major results that the model gives a rough estimation of critical points of system stability loss and falling into a crisis recession. The model is used to forecast the macroeconomic dynamics of the US during the sixth Kondratieff cycle (2018-2050). For this forecast we use fixed production capital functional dependence on a long-term Kondratieff cycle and medium-term Juglar and Kuznets cycles. More accurate estimations of the time of crisis and recession are based on the model of accelerating log-periodic oscillations. The explosive growth of the prices of highly liquid commodities such as gold and oil is taken as real predictors of the global financial crisis. The second wave of crisis is expected to come in June 2011.

Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process in Long-Term Load Growth Forecast

The load growth is the most important uncertainties in power system planning process. The applications of the classical long-term load forecasting methods particularly applied to utilities in transition economy are insufficient and may produce incorrect decisions in power system planning process. This paper discusses using the method of analytic hierarchy process to calculate the probability distribution of load growth obtained previously by standard load forecasting methods.

Short-Term and Long-Term Price Forecasting Models for the Future Exchange of Mongolian Natural Sea Buckthorn Market

Sea buckthorn market floated uncertainly within a narrow range. The market situation provided upward pressure on prices, and producer and consumer interest were poor, coupled with weak prices in the regional markets. The objectives of the study are: 1) to estimate the relationship between wild Sea buckthorn (SB) price and Supply, Demand, while some other factors of crude oil price and exchange rate by using simultaneous Supply-Demand and Price system equation and Vector Error Correction Method (VECM);2) to forecast the short-term and long-term SB price;3) to compare and evaluate the price forecasting models. Firstly, the data was analyzed by Ferris and Engle-Granger’s procedure;secondly, both price forecasting methodologies were tested by Pindyck-Rubinfeld and Makridakis’s procedure. The result shows that the VECM model is more efficient using yearly data;a short-term price forecast decreases, and a long-term price forecast is predicted to increase the Mongolian Sea buckthorn market.

Long-Term Electrical Load Forecasting in Rwanda Based on Support Vector Machine Enhanced with Q-SVM Optimization Kernel Function

In recent years, Rwanda’s rapid economic development has created the “Rwanda Africa Wonder”, but it has also led to a substantial increase in energy consumption with the ambitious goal of reaching universal access by 2024. Meanwhile, on the basis of the rapid and dynamic connection of new households, there is uncertainty about generating, importing, and exporting energy whichever imposes a significant barrier. Long-Term Load Forecasting (LTLF) will be a key to the country’s utility plan to examine the dynamic electrical load demand growth patterns and facilitate long-term planning for better and more accurate power system master plan expansion. However, a Support Vector Machine (SVM) for long-term electric load forecasting is presented in this paper for accurate load mix planning. Considering that an individual forecasting model usually cannot work properly for LTLF, a hybrid Q-SVM will be introduced to improve forecasting accuracy. Finally, effectively assess model performance and efficiency, error metrics, and model benchmark parameters there assessed. The case study demonstrates that the new strategy is quite useful to improve LTLF accuracy. The historical electric load data of Rwanda Energy Group (REG), a national utility company from 1998 to 2020 was used to test the forecast model. The simulation results demonstrate the proposed algorithm enhanced better forecasting accuracy.

A Hybrid Handover Forecasting Mechanism Based on Fuzzy Forecasting Model in Cellular Networks

As the increasing demand for mobile communications and the shrinking of the coverage of cells, handover mechanism will play an important role in future wireless networks to provide users with seamless mobile communication services. In order to guarantee the user experience, the handover decision should be made timely and reasonably. To achieve this goal, this paper presents a hybrid handover forecasting mechanism, which contains long-term and short-term forecasting models. The proposed mechanism could cooperate with the standard mechanisms, and improve the performance of standard handover decision mechanisms. Since most of the parameters involved are imprecise, fuzzy forecasting model is applied for dealing with predictions of them. The numerical results indicate that the mechanism could significantly decrease the rate of ping-pong handover and the rate of handover failure.

Stochastic Earned Duration Analysis for Project Schedule Management

Earned duration management(EDM)is a methodology for project schedule management(PSM)that can be considered an alternative to earned value management(EVM).EDM provides an estimation of devia-tions in schedule and a final project duration estimation.There is a key difference between EDM and EVM:In EDM,the value of activities is expressed as work periods;whereas in EVM,value is expressed in terms of cost.In this paper,we present how EDM can be applied to monitor and control stochastic pro-jects.To explain the methodology,we use a real case study with a project that presents a high level of uncertainty and activities with random durations.We analyze the usability of this approach according to the activities network topology and compare the EVM and earned schedule methodology(ESM)for PSM.

Skill Assessment of Copernicus Climate Change Service Seasonal Ensemble Precipitation Forecasts over Iran

Medium to long-term precipitation forecasting plays a pivotal role in water resource management and development of warning systems.Recently,the Copernicus Climate Change Service(C3S)database has been releasing monthly forecasts for lead times of up to three months for public use.This study evaluated the ensemble forecasts of three C3S models over the period 1993-2017 in Iran’s eight classified precipitation clusters for one-to three-month lead times.Probabilistic and non-probabilistic criteria were used for evaluation.Furthermore,the skill of selected models was analyzed in dry and wet periods in different precipitation clusters.The results indicated that the models performed best in western precipitation clusters,while in the northern humid cluster the models had negative skill scores.All models were better at forecasting upper-tercile events in dry seasons and lower-tercile events in wet seasons.Moreover,with increasing lead time,the forecast skill of the models worsened.In terms of forecasting in dry and wet years,the forecasts of the models were generally close to observations,albeit they underestimated several severe dry periods and overestimated a few wet periods.Moreover,the multi-model forecasts generated via multivariate regression of the forecasts of the three models yielded better results compared with those of individual models.In general,the ECMWF and UKMO models were found to be appropriate for one-month-ahead precipitation forecasting in most clusters of Iran.For the clusters considered in Iran and for the long-range system versions considered,the Météo France model had lower skill than the other models.

Long-term Energy Demand and CO_2 Problem in the PRC

The long-term energy demand in China and the-Chinese share in global CO2 emission are forecasted on the basis of scenarios of population growth and economy development up to 2050 proposed in view of the interaction of energy, economy, environment and social development. The total energy demand in 2050 will reach 4.4~ 5.4 billion tce. It is shown in energy supply analysis that coal is China’s major energy in primary energy supply. The share of CO2 emission in the future Chinese energy system will be out of proportion to its energy consumption share because of the high persentage of coal to be consumed. It will reach about 27%. The nuclear option which would replace 30.7% of coal in the total primary energy supply will reduce the share by 9.8%. So the policy considerations on the future Chinese energy system is of great importance to the global CO2 issues.

Identification of expected seismic activity areas by forecasting complex seismic-mode parameters in Uzbekistan

In this paper, the author proposed a methodology to reveal expected seismic activation places for coming years by a complex of forecasting parameters of a seismic mode. Areas in Uzbekistan where currently observed anomalies in various parameters of a seismic mode has been revealed. By number of displayed abnormal signs the areas has been ranked based on probability of occurrence of strong earthquakes there. It has prepared schemes of the synoptic forecast of expected seismic activation places in case of occurrence of strong earthquakes in the Central-Asian region.

Long-term Prediction and Verification of Rainfall Based on the Seasonal Model

Using the seasonal cross-multiplication trend model, monthly precipitation of eight national basic weather stations of Shaanxi Province from 2005 to 2010 was predicted, and the forecast results were verified using the rainfall scoring rules of China Meteorological Administration. The verification results show that the average score of annual precipitation prediction in recent six years is higher than that made by a professional forecaster, so this model has a good prospect of application. Moreover, the level of making prediction is steady, and it can be widely used in long-term prediction of rainfall.

Theoretical explanations to security analysts＇ forecast bias

As the representative of mature investors, security analysts＇ recommendations are guidance for most investors, However, a great deal of studies nearly draws the consistent conclusion, i.e. they are not as smart as we imagine, or the market doesn＇t trust their recommendations so much. The existence of optimistic bias in their recommendations has been supported by empirical data widely. Hence these make many papers to explore the reasons and try to give theoretical explanations. Based on prior researches, this paper mainly compares two theoretical models both based on mathematical methods.