Information about bank intangibles,analyst information intermediation,and the role of knowledge and social forces in the ‘market for information’

Although developments in the sell-side analyst literature have revealed the role of intellectual capital (IC) in analysts’ work, the whole information intermediation progress of IC remains a “black box”. This paper develops an analyst information intermediation model, illustrating how ‘soft’ information changes through analyst acquisition, processing and disclosure of information. Bourdieu’s ideas of habitus, field and capital are used to develop our explanation of the analyst information intermediation model. We argue that the combination of empirical evidence and theoretical explanation provides a new and more comprehensive way to improve understanding of the role of analysts within knowledge and social contexts.     

Importance of Intellectual Capital Information: A Study of Australian Analyst Reports

This study explores the types of intellectual capital (IC) information considered important by analysts. It uses content analysis to examine IC information in 64 initiating coverage reports written on Australian listed companies. Results reveal that analysts consider several types of IC information to be important from a firm valuation perspective, many of which had not previously been examined in capital markets research. It was also found that the relative importance placed on types of IC varies by sector. Information on relational capital and company management was most commonly used within analyst reports, whilst information on employees, working environment and structural capital was used least frequently.     

The use of intellectual capital information in investment decisions: An empirical study using analyst reports

Do financial analysts convey intellectual capital information in their recommendations? This study of a sample of analyst reports on large, listed Spanish companies provides some evidence on the question. Analysts usually report information regarding a company's strategy, customers, and processes; they less often provide information about research, development, and innovation. When controlling for endogeneity, we find that certain firm characteristics appear to influence the use of intellectual capital information. Analysts use this information in the case of highly profitable companies. The results also show a significant effect of growth opportunities on intellectual capital disclosure by financial analysts.     

Is Working Capital Information Useful for Financial Analysts? Evidence from China

Financial analysts are important information intermediaries in the capital market. This study investigates whether information about working capital management is useful for financial analysts of Chinese firms. With a sample of listed companies from 2004 to 2014, we find that the efficiency of working capital management is positively associated with the number of analyst following and analyst forecast accuracy, and negatively associated with analyst forecast dispersion. Specifically, when the cash conversion cycle becomes longer, number of analyst following and the accuracy of their mean forecasts decrease, while the forecast dispersion increases. The findings of this study indicate a potential mechanism through which information about working capital management is incorporated in stock price in emerging markets such as China.     

上市公司信息环境和分析师的盈利预测——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

分析师在证券市场中扮演着重要角色,而上市公司信息环境则直接将影响分析师作用的发挥。本文研究了我国上市公司信息环境对分析师预测行为的影响。实证研究表明：公司信息环境越差,证券分析师将越少使用历史会计信息,分析师向证券市场传递的增量信息就越多,相对历史会计信息而言,分析师预测信息的竞争力就越高。由于国内研究上市公司信息环境的文章相对较少,所以本文为国内分析师的盈利预测及相关研究提供了一个新视角。     

The bright side of analyst coverage on corporate innovation: Evidence from China

Using a sample of A-share listed companies in China from 2007 to 2019, we investigate the effect of analyst coverage on corporate innovation. We find that analyst coverage will promote corporate innovation, supporting the information hypothesis. We also discuss possible mechanisms of how analyst coverage increases innovation. The information and monitor effects are two plausible channels that allow analyst coverage to promote innovation. Heterogeneity analysis shows the positive relation is more pronounced in non-SOEs, in higher intellectual property protection regions. And considering the firms' life cycle, we find firms in the growth and maturity stage are more vulnerably affected by analysts. Further investigation reveals a positive relationship between analyst coverage and external innovation, and the increased innovation ultimately translates into the long-term value of firms. Our research enriches the impact of analyst coverage on innovation and provides new empirical evidence to improve the multi-level capital market.     

Do star analysts know more firm-specific information? Evidence from China

Using a unique database in China, we extend the literature to further distinguish the information production role of star vs. non-star analysts. We confirm the general conclusion of a positive association between analyst coverage and stock return synchronicity measured by a firm’s R² in China. The findings from star analysts, however, show that star analyst coverage actually decreases stock return synchronicity. We contend that the firm-specific human capital in star analysts helps the analysts overcome the challenges of information production in an emerging market. The superior firm-specific human capital argument of star analysts is further supported by the negative association of star analysts’ firm-specific experiences and stock return synchronicity. Our conclusions are robust to different specifications of star analyst presence and different definitions of analysts’ firm-specific experiences. We also find that star analysts exhibit a more accurate earnings forecast than non-star analysts.     

To beat or not to beat? The importance of analysts’ cash flow forecasts

We investigate the implications of firms’ benchmark-beating patterns with respect to analysts’ quarterly cash flow forecasts for firms’ current capital market valuation and their future performance. We hypothesize that nonnegative earnings surprises are more likely to be supported by real operating performance and signal higher earnings quality if they are achieved via higher than expected cash flows or lower than expected accruals. We show that firms beating analyst earnings forecasts have larger positive capital market reactions and larger earnings response coefficients if they beat analyst cash flow forecasts or report lower than expected accruals. We also demonstrate that these firms’ superior future performance may provide an economic justification for their more favorable market response. Our findings suggest that firms’ ability to beat analyst cash flow forecasts is informative regarding the quality of their earnings surprises.     

How efficient is the market for Australian firms’ earnings information?

We construct a measure of the speed with which forecasts issued by sell-side analysts accurately forecast future annual earnings. Following Marshall, we label this measure earnings information flow timeliness (EIFT). This measure avoids the aggregation problem inherent in price-based measures of information efficiency. We document large variation in EIFT across firm-years, and show that EIFT is positively associated with the extent of analyst following, consistent with increased analyst coverage improving the speed with which earnings-related information is recognised. We also find that EIFT is higher for firm-years classified as ‘bad news’ (i.e., where analysts’ forecasts at the start of the financial period exceed the reported outcome). However, when we separately consider instances where analysts appear to forecast non-GAAP (or ‘street’) earnings rather than GAAP earnings, we find that the greater timeliness of bad news is concentrated among observations where analysts forecast non-GAAP earnings, where unusual items are typically excluded. We conclude that the market for accounting information is more efficient for negative operating outcomes than for negative outcomes reflecting unusual items.     

Does the Scope of the Sell‐Side Analyst Industry Matter? An Examination of Bias,Accuracy, and Information Content of Analyst Reports

We examine changes in the scope of the sell‐side analyst industry and whether these changes impact information dissemination and the quality of analysts’ reports. Our findings suggest that changes in the number of analysts covering an industry impact analyst competition and have significant spillover effects on other analysts’ forecast accuracy, bias, report informativeness, and effort. These spillover industry effects are incremental to the effects of firm level changes in analyst coverage. Overall, a more significant sell‐side analyst industry presence has positive externalities that can result in better functioning capital markets.     

Fair Value‐related Information in Analysts’ Decision Processes: Evidence from the Financial Crisis

We use a sample of conference calls and analyst research reports from international banks to examine how financial analysts request and communicate fair value‐related information in their valuation process. We find that analysts devote considerable attention to fair value‐related topics. Most of the conference call questions and references in research reports pertain to fair value reclassifications and fair value changes of liabilities resulting from banks’ own credit risk. The accounting impact of these one‐time effects during the financial crisis and a lack of corresponding firm disclosures help to explain the prevalence of these two topics. The content of the questions and references suggests that analysts have different motives for their interest in fair value‐related information. While some analysts adjust reported earnings for unrecognised fair value changes of reclassified assets, most of the observed analysts exclude banks’ own credit risk effects from reported earnings. Thus, the use of fair value‐related information varies substantially across analysts and across instruments.     

Analysts’ Perceptions of Intellectual Capital Information

This study is based on a survey of 324 financial analysts in Japan. The survey concerns analysts’ perceptions of intellectual capital (IC) information and its links to the evaluation of companies. The value relevance of and the access to IC‐related information reveals a large gap on many items. The analysis further shows that the lack of access to information hampers analysts’ use of IC in their evaluation of companies, particularly in their use of human capital measures. Attitudes towards more disclosure and standardisation are mainly driven by perceptions of what generates value in companies.     

Causal language intensity in performance commentary and financial analyst behaviour

We use automated techniques to measure causal reasoning on earnings‐related financial outcomes of a large sample of MD&A sections of US firms and examine the intensity of causal language in that context against extent of analyst following and against properties of analysts’ earnings forecasts. We find a positive and significant association between a firm's causal reasoning intensity and analyst following and analyst earnings forecast accuracy respectively. Correspondingly, analysts’ earnings forecast dispersion is negatively and significantly associated with causal reasoning intensity. These results suggest that causal reasoning intensity provides incremental information about the relationship between financial performance outcomes and its causes, thereby reducing financial analysts’ information processing and interpreting costs and lowering overall analyst information uncertainty. Additionally, we find that decreases in analyst following are followed by more causal reasoning on performance disclosure. We also find that firms with a considerable increase of causal disclosure especially attract new analysts who already cover many firms. Overall, our evidence of the relationship between causal reasoning intensity and properties of analyst behaviour is consistent with the proposition that causal reasoning is a generic narrative disclosure quality characteristic, able to provide incremental information to analysts and guide analysts' behaviour.     

What Drives Sell‐Side Analyst Compensation at High‐Status Investment Banks?

We use proprietary data from a major investment bank to investigate factors associated with analysts’ annual compensation. We find compensation to be positively related to “All‐Star” recognition, investment‐banking contributions, the size of analysts’ portfolios, and whether an analyst is identified as a top stock picker by the Wall Street Journal. We find no evidence that compensation is related to earnings forecast accuracy. But consistent with prior studies, we find analyst turnover to be related to forecast accuracy, suggesting that analyst forecasting incentives are primarily termination based. Additional analyses indicate that “All‐Star” recognition proxies for buy‐side client votes on analyst research quality used to allocate commissions across banks and analysts. Taken as a whole, our evidence is consistent with analyst compensation being designed to reward actions that increase brokerage and investment‐banking revenues. To assess the generality of our findings, we test the same relations using compensation data from a second high‐status bank and obtain similar results.     

高铁能提升分析师盈余预测的准确度吗?——来自上市公司的证据

本文搜集了2006-2016年中国201个地级市高铁开通的情况,并匹配了A股1,244家上市公司的面板数据,利用双重差分(DID)模型,研究了高铁开通对证券分析师盈余预测的影响。研究结果显示:高铁通车之后,分析师盈余预测的精准度显著提升,分歧度和乐观度显著下降。进一步考察高铁发挥作用的内在机制,发现高铁开通显著增加了对沿线公司进行实地调研的分析师数量及人均调研次数。高铁开通对分析师盈余预测的影响存在异质性,影响主要体现在信息处理成本较低的企业、公司治理水平较好的企业以及分析师面临买方压力较小的企业中。动态地来看,高铁开通对分析师盈余预测的影响主要体现在通车两年以后。此外,在利用工具变量法、控制飞机出行以减少内生性问题之后,上述结论仍稳健。这说明高铁的开通改善了资本市场的信息环境,使得分析师能够更好地扮演信息中介的角色。文章较早研究了高铁开通对分析师盈余预测的影响,揭示了高铁在金融市场的信息传导效应。     

Concentrated Control,Analyst Following,and Valuation: Do Analysts Matter Most When Investors Are Protected Least?

This paper uses a sample of more than 2,500 firms from 27 countries to investigate the relation among ownership structure, analyst following, investor protection, and valuation. We find that analysts are less likely to follow firms with potential incentives to withhold or manipulate information, such as when the family/management group is the largest control rights blockholder. Furthermore, this relation is stronger for firms from low-shareholder-protection countries. Using valuation regressions that take into account potential endogeneity between analyst following and firm value, we find a positive valuation effect when analysts cover firms that have both potentially poor internal governance and weak country-level external governance. Overall, our findings suggest that corporate governance plays an important role in analysts' willingness to follow firms and that increased analyst following is associated with higher valuations, particularly for firms likely to face governance problems.     

Does international experience of managers bring financing benefits? Evidence from the cost of equity capital

Using a sample of Chinese firms, this study examines whether and how managers’ overseas experience affects a firm’s cost of equity capital. We document a negative association between managers’ overseas experience and the cost of equity capital. Mechanism analyses indicate that companies with returnee managers have better information quality and lower systematic risk; more institutional investors, media reports, and analysts following; and higher stock liquidity, all of which lead to a lower cost of equity capital. Further analyses show that chief executive officers (CEOs) with foreign experience have a more significant impact on the cost of capital than non-CEO managers with foreign experience and that managers’ overseas work experience has a more significant impact on the cost of capital than their overseas education. We also find that the impact of managers’ overseas experience is more pronounced when that experience is gained in common law countries compared to code law countries but weaker for state-owned enterprises and firms that are cross-listed or have foreign institutional investors. Overall, the results suggest that managers’ knowledge, skills, and ethical values imprinted from overseas experience, plus eyeball effects from media and analyst attention, can reduce the cost of equity capital.     

Are All Security Analysts Equal?

We examine the extent to which security analysts are homogeneous in their effect on firm valuation as measured by Tobin's Q. Earlier research documents a significant and positive relation between analyst coverage and firm valuation. We identify three classes of equity analysts and examine their differential effect on firm valuation associated with their coverage and their information production. We find that equity analysts are not homogeneous in their effect on firm valuation. The presence of analysts at national securities firms have the strongest effect on firm valuation followed by analysts at regional securities firms and finally analysts at nonbrokerage, or research, firms. We attribute this result to the differential monitoring and information dissemination function rendered by the analysts. Information produced by analysts, however, does not share the same credibility. Specifically, we find brokerage firms' buy recommendations are discounted by the market and have a weak effect on firm valuation. The results can be supported by arguments that brokerage firm analysts' recommendations are contaminated by their firms' investment banking relations with corporations.     

Firms’ innovation strategy under the shadow of analyst coverage

We study the effect of analyst coverage on firms’ innovation strategy and outcome. Using data of US firms from 1990 to 2012, we find evidence that an increase in financial analysts leads firms to cut research and development expenses, acquire more innovative firms, and invest in corporate venture capital. We attribute the first result to the effect of analyst pressure and the others to the informational role of analysts. We also find that financial analysts encourage firms to make more efficient investments related to innovation, which increases their future patents and citations and influences the novelty of their innovations.     

Investment and access to external finance in Europe: Does analyst coverage matter?

We aim to determine whether analyst coverage improves European firms’ access to capital markets and investment. Based on a data set that includes firms from several European countries between 2000 and 2015, we implement a treatment effect framework and an instrumental variables (IV) approach, in which the intensity of industry-level waves in coverage is used as an instrument for firm-level coverage. We show that analyst coverage is favorable to firms’ debt and share issuance and their investment expenses. Our paper emphasizes the key role of financial analysts in improving European firms’ financial conditions.