Laura Schaffer, Laura Schaffer2011-06-102011-06-102011-06-10http://hdl.handle.net/10539/10088MBA - WBSThe presence of a predictable share price response to a surprise in announced earnings by listed companies has been documented in US equity markets since 1968. This research investigated whether the presence of a positive or negative earnings surprise for companies listed on the JSE Securities Exchange resulted in an equivalent predictable share price response. The research was conducted on a sample of 112 companies listed on the JSE Securities Exchange between the period 1 February 2001 and 8 August 2007. The study analysed share price responses to 946 earnings surprise events over the three-day trading window around the actual earnings announcement date. Sell-side analyst earnings forecasts as published on INET Bridge were used as a proxy for the earnings expected by the market at the time of the company earnings announcement. The results of the event study showed a weakly positive share price response to a positive earnings surprise, the presence of which was not sustained once a few extreme values were excluded from the sample. The event study results for negative earnings surprises were more conclusive in showing no predictable significant share price response.enShare price movementsJohannesburg Securities ExchangeThesis