Abstract:

The risk of stock price collapse is the "obstacle" to the steady operation of China's capital market, which has been widely concerned by the academic circle and others. However, few studies on stock price collapse have been done from the perspective of corporate cash flow risk. Taking A-share non-financial listed companies from 2002 to 2015 as samples, this paper empirically tests the impact of cash flow risk on stock price collapse by using a dual fixed effect model. The results show that cash flow risk has a significant positive relationship with stock price collapse risk, that is, the higher the company's cash flow risk, the greater the stock price collapse. There is also a significant positive relationship between analyst coverage and stock price collapse risk, that is, the more analyst coverage, the greater the risk of stock price collapse. Analyst coverage reinforces the positive relationship between cash flow risk and stock price collapse, indicating that analysts do not play a role in alleviating information asymmetry. The conclusion is still valid after a series of robustness tests. The above conclusions not only reveal new factors of stock price collapse from the perspective of cash flow risk, but also provide empirical evidence for understanding the role of analysts in the capital market.

Key words: analyst coverage, cash flow risk, stock price collapse, A-share listed companies