Do MCAP and P/E Ratios Have an Impact on the EPS of High and Low Beta (β) Firms? An Analysis of Covariance on Select Companies!

Abstract

Earnings Per Share (EPS), among other measures, is considered as a reliable tool of risk analysis, financial performance, growth, and success of companies. The current study attempts to examine if high and low-beta firms have yielded returns that commensurate with the risk, meaning, ‘the higher the risk, the higher the returns and the lower the risk, the lower the returns’, in terms of share price returns and other yardsticks. ANCOVA test was applied on the high-beta (14) and low-beta (36) sample companies. The results threw a few interesting insights. In conformity with the existing literature, high-beta firms yielded higher returns and low-beta firms, lower returns. While MCAP (Covariate) had a statistically significant influence on the dependent variable EPS, P/E ratio (Covariate) did not exhibit any significant influence on the EPS.