Many industries put on a show of sustainability to draw in investors even though they are not financially viable. This study examines how real-earnings management (REM) moderates the relationship between credit risk (CR) and financial sustainability (FS). Real earnings management (REM) uses three techniques to measure earnings management: cash flow, overproduction, and discretionary spending. The distance-to-default approach of the KMV model, as an inverse proxy, is used in the current study to enumerate CR. Panel data of non-financial listed companies from 2013 to 2021 is used in this study. This study used PROCESS macro to construct bootstrap confidence intervals to estimate the model and “simple slope analysis” to visualize the model. The findings demonstrate a significant negative relationship between credit risk and financial sustainability. Real earnings management as a moderator weakens the relationship between financial sustainability and credit risk. This study aids investors in integrating sustainability into their investment process and helps them make wise choices. In addition, the results of this study might assist managers in adjusting cash flow patterns, real earnings management practices, and financial sustainability to reduce credit risk.

This paper attempts to analyze the applicability of CAPM and the effect of oil prices on firm’s stock in case of Pakistan. To examine this research objective, we use the yearly data of 148 listed firms over the period of 2006 to 2015. We employ three different estimation techniques, panel correlated standard error estimation (PCSE), Driscoll and Kraay (DK) estimation and common correlated effects pooled (CCEP), to analyze the relationship between oil variables and firm’s stock return. Moreover, we further estimate the variables by using robust estimation techniques to validate the empirical results. The estimations report the inapplicable of market premium in case of Pakistani firms. However, the oil price and lagged oil prices provides the evidence of negative and statistically significance in textile, sugar, cement, chemical and engineering sectors. On contrary, the oil prices and lagged oil prices have positive and significant impact on stock return in transportation and energy sectors. In conclusion, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that oil price have higher influence on stock returns as compared to the market premium and nearly all the manufacturing sectors are inversely affected by the oil price rise.