Relevance of accounting information to capital market: evidences in Brazilian market

Abstract

According to Fama (1970) the Capital Markets are fundamental for the economic development of a country because they allocate the resources that are available for investment, a feature that when developed, provides important signals for the formation of stock prices, which should reflect the existing information in the economic system at any time. According to Hendriksen and Van Breda (1999, p.117), the financial statements present the financial, patrimonial and economic situations of the organizations to the external user. Considering the importance of the information for the development of the Capital Market and also, the relevance of financial statements, this paper proposes a study about the efficiency of the Brazilian Market and the impact of the disclosure of financial statements in the price of the stocks. The Study of Events technique was used, being regarded as event, the date of the disclosure of the quarterly and annual financial statements for the period of 2007/2009 of 42 papers of companies listed in the Bovespa Index (Ibovespa) consecutively in the analyzed period. The results reinforced the efficiency hypotheses in its semi-strong form, because the financial statement, for the most part, did not significantly affect the bond prices, except in the period of 2009, when a significant effect was observed, in the cumulative returns of securities after the publication.