ABSTRACT
Prior research documents a relationship between accounting information and future
stock returns. Specifically, Piotroski (2000) and Mohanram (2005) demonstrate that the
investor-friendly composite scores constructed mainly based on historical accounting
information can be used to predict future stock returns for high and low book-to-market (BM)
firms, respectively. This paper employs two investor-friendly composite scores -- VSCORE
and GSCORE, used in Piotroski (2000) and Mohanram (2005), respectively. The composite
scores are the sum of binary scores (1 or 0) marked from each individual financial measure.
VSCORE represents financial measures related to profitability, leverage/liquidity, and
operating efficiency while GSCORE represents profitability measures and growth-oriented
measures related to earnings stability, growth stability, capital expenditures and advertising
expenses intensity.
This paper provides empirical evidence for listed firms in the Stock Exchange of
Thailand (SET) and the Market for Alternative Investment (mai) during 1994 to 2008
suggesting that a portfolio of stocks with higher composite scores (both VSCORE and
GSCORE) earn higher one-year and two-year ahead market-adjusted returns without
additional risk and that a zero-investment portfolio of longing high VSCORE (GSCORE)
stocks and shorting low VSCORE (GSCORE) earn significant positive future marketadjusted
returns. In addition, this paper documents that a portfolio of stocks with higher
VSCORE earn higher future market-adjusted returns without additional risk for both
subsamples of high and low BM firms although VSCORE is used for only high BM firms in
Piotroski (2000). Similarly, our empirical results suggest that a portfolio of stocks with
higher GSCORE earn higher future market-adjusted returns without additional risk for both
high and low BM firms although GSCORE is used for only low BM firms in Mohanram
(2000).