Stock Price Drift from the Content of Projected Earnings Information Resulting from Quarterly Operations: Evidence of the Contradiction Between Timeliness and Profitability

Financial statements should have general objectives rather than specific group interests. The possibility of forecasting earnings based on seasonal performance instead of the previous year s earnings and in terms of the contradiction between timeliness and the ability to verify earnings can be a new and thought-provoking issue. The present study examines stock price drift from the content of projected earnings forecast for quarterly operations. The research hypotheses were tested through univariate regression, multivariate regression and correlation coefficient tests using Eviews software. Findings of this study indicate that 1- Profit forecast based on quarterly performance has more verifiability than the previous year (profit stability). 2- The Verifiability of the year profit is more than the profit forecast based on the 9-month performance. 3- Stock price drift is expected on the day after the announcement of earnings and there are changes in earnings compared to the forecast of the previous season. 4- No relationship was observed between the volumes of shares traded the next day and the announcement of the forecasted profit and the changes in the profit compared to the forecast of the previous season.