The relationship between corporate forward-looking disclosure and stock return volatility

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The study assesses corporate forward-looking disclosure by measuring four attributes, namely disclosure quantity, disclosure coverage, disclosure concentration and disclosure quality, through a sample of 34 listed firms in the Bahrain Bourse from 2014 to 2017. The study also investigates the relationship between these attributes and stock return volatility. Regression analysis has been employed with five different models to examine the relationship between the four attributes of corporate forward-looking disclosure and stock return volatility. The main finding of this study agrees with the results of Bravo et al. (2009) who found that the selection of a specific disclosure index could influence crucially the results of the analysis. In addition, stock return volatility has a statistically significant negative association with the three attributes of forward-looking disclosure, namely disclosure quantity, disclosure coverage and disclosure quality. In contrast, it has a non-significant association with the fourth attribute of forward-looking disclosure, disclosure concentration. This study provides a novel contribution to disclosure quality studies by being the first study to examine forward-looking disclosure quality attributes in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

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    • Table 1. Definitions of the study’s variables
    • Table 2. Summarized firms’ distribution by sectors
    • Table 3. Descriptive statistics
    • Table 4. Company ranking in year 2017
    • Table 5. Correlation matrix of the variables of the study
    • Table 6. Regression analysis of the study
    • Table A1. Forward-looking disclosure index
    • Table B1. Company ranking in year 2016
    • Table B2. Company ranking in year 2015
    • Table B3. Company ranking in year 2014
    • Table C1. List of firms included in the sample of the study
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Problems and Perspectives in Management