Trading U.S. Stocks on Core Earnings

Does careful accounting for transitory expenses in SEC Form 10-Ks provide a better view of future firm/stock performance than that provided by Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP) earnings per share (EPS)? In their October 2019 paper entitled “Core Earnings: New Data and Evidence”, Ethan Rouen, Eric So and Charles Wang define Core Earnings, which adds to GAAP 10-K net non-operating expenses related to: (1) acquisitions, (2) currency exchange adjustments, discontinued operations, (4) legal or regulatory events, (5) pension adjustments, (6) restructuring, (7) gains and losses designated “other” by firms and (8) other unclassified gains and losses deemed non-operating. Using a dataset compiled by a combination of human analysts and machine learning that identifies and classifies quantitative disclosures in 10-Ks of Russell 3000 firms, and associated stock prices, during 1998 through 2017, they find that:

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