However, we find that the coefficients obtained for firm size and cash flow are positively related to cash holdings but insignificant, which contradicts the trade-off theory argument but consistent with the pecking order theory. The pecking order theory postulates that larger firms have high level of operational cash flow and firms will increase their cash holdings due to the presence of asymmetric information problem. Moreover, the positive relation between cash flow and cash holdings coincides with the previous results (Opler et al.. 1999: Ozkan and Ozkan. 2004: Ferreira and Vilela. 2004).