Are the Recent Restatements of Financial Institutions 10K’s due to the Perceived Earning Volatility Caused by SFAS 161?

The goal of this research was to investigate the controversy surrounding the inability of SFAS 133 an amendment of SFAS 161 to portray the economics of hedging. This research examined whether or not BHCs’ design of hedge effectiveness tests was determined by the concern of the additional earnings volatility possibly evolved from economic hedges that do not qualify for hedge accounting. The results implicate that most BHCs after the amendment of SFAS 161 reassessed their risk management approach to one that is more accounting responsive to ensure that most hedges are highly effective to qualify for hedge accounting. The findings suggest that BHCs reciprocate between risk management and earnings volatility when face a trade-off between employ economic hedges which increase earnings volatility and discontinue economic hedges to avoid increases in earnings volatility. The results accede with the results of Park (2004), Singh (2008), Zhang (2008), Hariom (2014), Bratten (2016), Spencer (2018), and Thomas (2018) who found that derivative users had lower levels of earnings volatility after the introduction of SFAS 161.

Bank External Financing and Early Adoption of SFAS 133

This study examines whether and how US bank holding companies that early adopted Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) 133, “Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities,” experience changes in their external financing activities relative to banks that did not early adopt the standard. Consistent with predictions, the study shows that early adopters hold higher and experience greater changes in their leverage compared with nonearly adopters. In addition, early adopters experience greater shifts in weights of liabilities other than insured deposits in banks’ funding mix. This finding is consistent with banking literature which states that banks have shifted towards nondeposit debts to finance their balance sheet growth.

Accounting for derivatives and risk management activities

Purpose – The lessons and merits of changes in the recognition and disclosure of derivative instruments and hedging activities are still debated and are a major policy issue. Prior studies provide mixed evidences on the economic consequences of mandatory derivative instruments ' recognition and disclosure. This paper aims to provide empirical evidence on the impact of mandatory derivative instruments ' recognition and disclosure on managers’ risk-management behavior. More importantly, this paper aims to investigate the role of product market competition on the impact of mandatory derivative instruments ' recognition and disclosure on managers’ risk-management behavior. Design/methodology/approach – This paper tests the author ' s hypotheses using the fixed-effects estimation technique, where it includes firm dummies in all the regressions. This approach enables to control for unobserved firm effects (fixed effects) on firms’ risk-management behavior that are assumed to be constant through time but vary across firms. Findings – The author finds that mandatory recognition and disclosure of derivative instruments and hedging activities, on average, decreases firms’ market rate risk exposure. This finding suggests that after the implementation of the recognition and disclosure of derivative instruments and hedging activities required by Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 133 (SFAS 133), firms engage in more prudent risk-management activities to mitigate the potential cost of earnings volatility imposed by the standard. However, the decrease in market rate risk exposure is lower when the level of product market competition is higher. This finding is consistent with the idea that the recognition and disclosure of derivative instruments and hedging activities required by SFAS 133 unintentionally forces firms in competitive industries to engage in significant risk-taking. The result suggests that more disclosure in risk management may change risk-management incentives in undesirable ways if firms face the threat of entry in their product markets. Practical/implications – The results provide a new understanding on the role of product market competition on the effectiveness of mandatory derivative instruments ' recognition and disclosure. The findings imply that standard setters should take product market competition into consideration before making derivative instruments and hedging activities ' recognition and disclosure mandatory for all firms. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the accounting literature by providing a new insight into the moderating role of product market competition in the accounting recognition and disclosure regulation and firms’ reporting behavior relation. Moreover, the paper extends the current literature on the effects of SFAS 133 on risk-management activities and sheds light on the impact of accounting regulations on firms’ real economic behavior.

The Combined Effects of Financial Derivatives and Discretionary Accruals on the Value Relevance of Earnings and the Book Value of Equity

This study aimed to understand (1) the association between the use of discretionary accruals and financial derivatives, taking into consideration the implementation of revised PSAK 55 (1999), which was adopted from SFAS 133; (2) the combined effects of derivatives and discretionary accruals on the value relevance of earnings and equity. The analysis used panel data regressions and the Wald test over the period from 2001-2008. The results showed a positive or complementary association between derivatives and discretionary accruals. The positive association implied that managers tended to intensify the use of discretionary accruals to offset a higher use of derivatives. Price and return models demonstrated negative significant effects of derivatives on the value relevance of earnings. The return model showed negative significant effects of discretionary accruals on the value relevance of earnings but negative effects on the value relevance of equity with the price model.

Commercial Banks and Value Relevance of Derivative Disclosures after SFAS 133: Evidence from the USA

In the last decade there has been a significant increase in the use of derivatives as a vehicle to manage financial risk. The sudden spurt of derivatives has resulted in the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) being forced to develop new standards for quantification and disclosure. The financial standard of interest to this study is Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS 133). SFAS 133 requires all derivatives, without exception and regardless of the accounting treatment for the underlying asset, liability, or transaction, to be recognized in the balance sheet as either liabilities or assets. SFAS 133 entitled Accounting for derivative activities and hedging (and SFAS 137, which postponed the implementation of SFAS 133 until June 2000) is different from prior standards in that it requires recognition as opposed to mere disclosure in the notes. The justification given for implementing SFAS 133 was to increase transparency to investors. In this study we empirically investigate this issue with particular focus on whether SFAS 133 provides incremental information above that provided by reported earnings, book value, and proxies for omitted variables. We study commercial banks since they are among the most frequent users of large-scale derivative contracts and their use has increased significantly over the last two decades, and in particular over the last five years. Our findings indicate that information regarding total derivative contracts, when disclosed in the financial statements as required by SFAS 133/137, is value relevant to investors. However, investors view this information negatively, perhaps attributing this to higher risk. Losses on holding derivatives are viewed positively and gains are viewed negatively.