Market value added and traditional accounting criteria: Which measure is a best predictor of stock return in Malaysian companies

This study tests the hypothesis that market value added (MVA) is more highly associated with stock return (SR) than traditional performance measures. The purpose of this study is to provide empirical evidence on the relative and incremental information content of MVA and traditional performance measures, namely, net income (NI), net operational profit after tax (NOPAT), and earning per shares (EPS). The sample involved 395 non-financial companies listed in the main market of Bursa Malaysia over the period 2002–2011. To analyze the hypotheses panel data regression methods were employed. The results indicated that accounting measures (NI, NOPAT and EPS) have higher relative information content with stock return compared to MVA. Thus, the results do not support the hypothesis that MVA is superior to traditional accounting measures in association with stock return. Moreover, the findings showed that MVA has incremental information content with stock return compared to accounting measures. Consequently, MVA is a useful measure in describing the firm’s stock return in Bursa Malaysia. Therefore, Malaysian companies can use MVA with traditional measures (NI, NOPAT, and EPS) in evaluating companies’ performance.