Our empirical results indicate that firms with
higher composite score earn higher one-year and
two-year market-adjusted buy-and-hold returns
than do firms with lower composite score without
additional risk and that a zero-investment portfolio
of longing high score stocks and shorting low score
stocks earn significant positive market-adjusted
returns. This suggests that historical accounting
information can be used to predict future stock
returns.
Piotroski (2000) suggests that his composite
score is appropriate for high BM firms. This paper
then examines whether the score is associated
with future stock returns for subsamples of high
BM firms. Firms with BM ratio above 70th percentile
are classified as high BM firms. Consistent with
results for our full sample, our empirical results
for high BM firms show that portfolios of stocks
with higher score earn higher one-year and twoyear
market-adjusted buy-and-hold returns than
do those with lower score without additional risk
and zero-investment portfolios of longing high
score stocks and shorting low score stocks earn
significant positive market-adjusted returns.
Our empirical results contribute to the
literature on the usefulness of historical accounting
information in predicting future stock returns.
While prior research finds that financial ratios are
associated with future stock returns, our study,
together with Piotroski (2000), provide empirical
evidence suggesting that the composite score
constructed based mainly on historical accounting
information can be used to choose stocks to invest
to earn positive abnormal returns and they can