Ohlson (1995) presents us with the license to break with the traditional focus on explaining price behavior and to shift that focus to pre dicting earnings, as long as we do it "properly." The key lies in the fol lowing approximation. It states that the value of the firm can be well approximated even over a finite horizon by a function of forecasted earn ings, book value, and discount rates. The only assumption required is that these forecasts be consistent with the clean surplus relation. We begin by defining a variable VtT as follows: