For instance, Barth et al. (1999) and Ke et al. (2003) report that firms with longer strings of increasing earnings have a more negative stock price response when the string is broken. Kasznik and McNichols (2002) find that firms with an MBE string experience a significant decline in stock price at the earnings announcement date if they break the string, while firms without an MBE string experience no significant changes in stock returns.