Analysts' utilization of historical earnings information

This study examines whether security analysts (in)efficiently utilize the information contained in past series of annual and quarterly earnings in producing earnings forecasts. To do so, it investigates whether equal-weighted combinations of security analysts' forecasts with forecasts from statistical models based on historical earnings are superior, both in terms of being a better surrogate for the market's expectations of earnings and of accuracy, to forecasts from either one of these two sources. The empirical findings indicate that, although analysts' forecasts are superior to forecasts from statistical models, performance can be improved—both in terms of accuracy and also of being a better surrogate for market earnings expectations—by combining analysts' forecasts with forecasts from statistical models based on past quarterly earnings. Improvements in proxying for market earnings expectations were obtained even when analysts' forecasts made in June of the forecast year were used in the combinations. An implication of these findings is that investors can improve their investment decisions by using an average of the mean analysts' forecasts and the forecast produced by a time-series model of quarterly earnings in their investment decisions.     

我国证券分析师盈利预测准确度实证研究

以我国2012—2014年非金融类上市公司为研究样本,考察证券分析师对上市公司盈利预测的准确度以及影响准确度的因素,结果表明：我国盈利预测平均准确度不高,盈利预测存在乐观偏误,盈利预测准确度有逐年增强的趋势;分析师热衷于对盈余平稳、预测难度低、运营前景较好的公司进行盈利预测;分析师对上市公司发布的报告数越多,预测准确度越高;公司规模越大、成长速度越快、盈利难度越低,分析师对其盈利预测的准确度越高;杠杆水平越高、历史盈余波动性越大的公司,分析师对其盈利预测的准确度越低,其中杠杆水平、盈利可预测性对分析师准确度的影响较大。     

股权质押影响分析师盈利预测吗？——基于上市公司与分析师互动行为的证据研究

基于上市公司与分析师互动的证据,从与分析师互动的频率和互动分析师的声誉两个维度出发,探索了控股股东股权质押影响分析师盈利预测质量的路径。研究发现：（1）控股股东股权质押降低了分析师盈利预测准确度,提高了盈利预测乐观度和盈利预测分歧度;（2）股权质押通过与分析师互动影响其盈利预测质量;（3）在剥离互动分析师声誉的影响后,股权质押的上市公司通过与分析师频繁地互动直接影响其盈利预测质量;（4）股权质押通过互动分析师声誉模式直接影响其盈利预测质量。异质性检验发现,股权质押控股股东持股比例高、股权质押率高、股权质押到期日临近、上市公司主动性强、基金公司重仓持股将进一步加剧股权质押对分析师盈利预测的影响。     

Corporate Nonfinancial Disclosure Practices and Financial Analyst Forecast Ability Across Three European Countries

This paper presents evidence that companies across three continental European countries (Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands) provide varying degrees of analyst recommended nonfinancial disclosures to the marketplace. This study is the first to examine the relationship of Jenkins Committee nonfinancial disclosure levels with the accuracy and dispersion of financial analysts' earnings forecasts. Seemingly unrelated regression tests show that larger companies and companies with a global focus voluntarily provide higher levels of both forward looking and historical nonfinancial disclosures. Additionally, higher levels of forward looking nonfinancial disclosures are associated with lower dispersion and higher accuracy in financial analysts' earnings forecasts.     

Analyst Following,Institutional Investors and Pricing of Future Earnings: Evidence from Korea

This paper examines the role of sophisticated investors in pricing future earnings in Korea. Using the future earnings response coefficient (FERC) model, we test the effect of analyst following and institutional ownership on the informativeness of stock returns for future earnings. We find that the informativeness of stock returns for future earnings, measured as the FERC, increases with the analyst following and institutional ownership. We also investigate how the recently introduced Regulation Fair Disclosure in Korea affects the informativeness of stock returns for future earnings and its relation with analyst following and institutional ownership. The results show that the regulation decreases the FERC in general and its relation with analyst following, suggesting that analysts' superior ability is impaired after the regulation.     

Integrated reporting and capital markets in an international setting: The role of financial analysts

This study investigates the interplay between integrated reporting (IR) and capital markets. In particular, building on voluntary disclosure and information processing theories, we hypothesize and empirically find that IR adoption improves analysts' ability to make accurate earnings forecasts. Whereas previous studies focus on the South African context, we rely on an international sample that also allows us to study the moderating effect of the corporate governance regime (shareholder or stakeholder oriented). The results suggest that IR improves analysts' ability to make accurate predictions to a larger extent in North America than in Europe, and we derive interesting insights on the much‐debated nature of IR. This study offers valuable insights to policy makers interested in improving disclosure practices in the financial market.     

Dissemination of Accruals Information,Role of Semi‐Annual Reporting,and Analysts' Earnings Forecasts: Evidence from Japan

Our study investigates the effects of dissemination of accounting accruals information on stock prices using Japanese annual reports as our sample. We conduct month‐by‐month detailed analyses of price adjustment behavior with a particular focus on revisions of analysts' earnings forecasts and changes in trading volume around the period of upcoming semi‐annual reports. We find that analysts' forecasts are often revised around this time, and analysts use this as auxiliary information. In addition, an accompanying re‐adjustment of abnormal returns and an increase in trading volume are observed. Our findings demonstrate that informational uncertainty initially triggered by the announcement of annual reports decreases as semi‐annual reports are disclosed and analysts change their earnings forecasts, and confirms the importance of semi‐annual reporting.     

An Evaluation of Financial Analysts' Earnings Forecasts for Hong Kong Firms

This study evaluates the accuracy and potential bias of analyst forecasts for Hong Kong firms published in the Estimate Directory and compares analyst forecasts to model forecasts. It also examines the association of forecast accuracy with various firm characteristics. The findings of the study show that on an overall basis analyst forecasts for Hong Kong firms are more accurate than model forecasts. Analyst forecasts for Earnings Per Share (EPS) are generally biased towards overstatement. The analysis of the association between forecast accuracy and company characteristics suggests that analyst forecasts for larger firms are comparatively more accurate than for smaller firms. As expected, the results also show that analyst forecasts with shorter time horizons are more accurate than forecasts with longer time horizons. The variability in firms' earnings, beta (market risk) or industry classification have no significant impact on the accuracy of analyst forecasts.     

How to Measure Analyst Forecast Effort

Abstract

We introduce a new way to measure the forecast effort that analysts devote to their earnings forecasts by measuring the analyst's general effort for all covered firms. While the commonly applied effort measure is based on analyst behaviour for one firm, our measure considers analyst behaviour for all covered firms. Our general effort measure captures additional information about analyst effort and thus can identify accurate forecasts. We emphasise the importance of investigating analyst behaviour in a larger context and argue that analysts who generally devote substantial forecast effort are also likely to devote substantial effort to a specific firm, even if this effort might not be captured by a firm-specific measure. Empirical results reveal that analysts who devote higher general forecast effort issue more accurate forecasts. Additional investigations show that analysts' career prospects improve with higher general forecast effort. Our measure improves on existing methods as it has higher explanatory power regarding differences in forecast accuracy than the commonly applied effort measure. Additionally, it can address research questions that cannot be examined with a firm-specific measure. It provides a simple but comprehensive way to identify accurate analysts.     

The European Market Abuse Directive: Has it Worked?

In this paper, we examine whether the Market Abuse Directive (MAD) has been effective in achieving its objectives of deterring the market manipulation activities, increasing the timeliness of information and decreasing the disclosure of inside information to select groups. Our sample consists of firms listed on Frankfurt Stock Exchange. We use stock prices and analysts' forecast‐based proxies to examine the impact and effectiveness of MAD. The analysis based on these two set of proxies provides evidence that the adoption of MAD has been effective. In particular, we find that after the implementation of MAD, on average, (1) the volatility of stock prices around earnings announcement declines, (2) stock prices remain closer to their post earnings announcement level during the period before earnings announcement, (3) the accuracy of analyst forecasts improves, (4) the dispersion of analyst forecasts decreases, and (5) the number of analysts following a company declines.     

Earnings forecasts in enterprise information systems environment

With the globalisation and integration of world financial markets, the application of enterprise information systems has become more and more popular in the financial service sector. This paper examines the analyst's decision regarding allocation of effort to the precision and timeliness of earnings forecasts with financial decision support systems. Once an analyst decides to follow a firm, the analyst must choose the level of effort to devote to generating outputs, such as earnings forecasts. This paper provides insights into this by examining three issues concerning the forecasts of the individual analyst. First, forecast accuracy and frequency are modelled simultaneously. Then, whether these two effort allocation choices are complements or substitutes is tested. Finally, how competition affects these two characteristics is examined. The accuracy and frequency are examined with simultaneous equations. Results from this analysis suggest that analysts allocate effort among these two forecast criteria in a complementary way. Finally, empirical results reveal a positive association between competition and forecast frequency by the individual analyst. However, a significant association between competition and the individual analyst's forecast accuracy is not found.     

Hard to arbitrage,hard for analysts to forecast

This paper examines whether limits to arbitrage (LA) affect analysts' earnings forecast accuracy. Using the LA index, which is constructed from unique trading constraints in the Chinese stock market and other commonly used measures, we find that forecast accuracy is much lower for stocks with high LA. Moreover, our results are more suited to explanations of cognitive bias that turn to investor sentiment or limited attention and cannot be fully explained by more objective factors, including analyst ability, broker size, broker experience, and commission pressure. We also find that LA amplifies analyst forecast dispersion. Such results indicate that LA distorts analysts’ earnings expectations and provides new insight into how LA affects anomaly returns.     

企业社会责任报告语调与分析师预测：信号还是迎合？

运用文本分析方法提取了2010—2018年上市公司社会责任报告的文本语调信息，基于信号理论和迎合理论探讨企业社会责任报告语调对分析师预测的影响。研究发现，企业社会责任报告的净正面语调降低了分析师预测偏差和分析师预测分歧度，并且在分析师预测存在乐观偏差时这种作用更加显著。进一步分析发现，企业社会责任报告语调对分析师预测的积极作用仅发生在强制披露和不遵守可持续发展报告指南的企业中以及经验较少、非明星分析师中。经济后果检验发现，社会责任报告语调通过降低分析师预测偏差和分歧度缓解了公司股价崩盘风险。研究结论不仅有助于丰富非财务信息披露经济后果和分析师预测影响因素两个领域的学术文献，而且可以为监管部门合理规范企业社会责任报告披露和投资者有效利用企业社会责任报告中的语调信息提供有益借鉴。     

担保网络影响分析师盈余预测偏差吗？

以2008—2018年沪深A股上市公司为研究对象,采用社会网络分析法考察上市公司担保网络对分析师盈余预测的影响。研究发现,上市公司加入担保网络会显著增加分析师盈余预测偏差,降低预测准确度,这种负面效应在双向担保、跨省融资担保、长期处于担保网络以及位于担保网络结构洞位置的上市公司中更加明显,而上市公司选择退出担保网络则有效降低了这种负面影响,提高了分析师盈余预测准确度。进一步研究发现,会计信息可比性是担保网络影响分析师盈余预测偏差的一条重要作用路径。调节效应分析结果显示,高质量的内部控制、良好的公司治理等内部治理机制与媒体监督、机构投资者治理等外部治理机制均能够有效降低担保网络上市公司对分析师盈余预测偏差的消极影响。研究结果有助于进一步梳理企业间复杂关系对资本市场信息传递效率的影响,为资本市场各方参与者有效缓解担保网络的消极影响提供了经验证据与政策方向。     

证券分析师跟踪:决定因素与经济后果

以会计信息的价值相关性模型为基础,探讨了分析师跟踪上市公司的决定因素及其对盈余信息价值相关性的影响。研究发现,分析师更倾向于选择盈余平滑程度较高且盈余操纵较少的公司。在分析师市场形成后,投资者将分析师的预测作为估计公司未来盈利的主要依据;对没有分析师跟踪的公司,投资者仍然倾向于运用以往的盈利作为公司未来盈利预测基础。     

The impact of regulation fair disclosure on earnings management and analyst forecast bias

Regulation Fair Disclosure (FD) has changed the information transfer process in the US securities market. We examine the impact that regulation FD has had on earnings management and analyst forecast bias. First, we examine the accuracy of financial analysts' earnings forecasts in the post-FD period. We find that analysts have become less accurate in forecasting earnings in the post-FD period and tend to overestimate earnings more relative to the pre-FD period. Second, we examine the level of earnings management after the passage of regulation FD and we find that the level of earnings management did not change after the implementation of regulation FD     

Earnings Benchmarks and the Information Content of Quarterly Foreign Earnings of U.S. Multinational Companies

The meeting of earnings benchmarks is considered important for investors. The chief financial officers of U.S. companies state that the three most important earnings thresholds to meet are the earnings in the same quarter last year, the analysts' earnings forecast for the current quarter, and zero earnings. These earnings benchmarks have been defined in terms of total earnings. For U.S. multinational firms, total earnings consist primarily of domestic earnings and foreign earnings. We conduct an event study where we examine (1) the stock market reaction to meeting or beating quarterly domestic and foreign earnings benchmarks and (2) the market reaction to the changes in quarterly domestic and foreign earnings, while we control for meeting or beating the analysts' earnings forecast and the analysts' earnings forecast surprise. We find that the quarterly financial statement disclosure of domestic and foreign earnings under Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 131 supplies investors with valuable information that was not previously disseminated through financial analysts or other sources. The stock market reaction to meeting or beating foreign earnings from the same quarter in the prior year is stronger than the market reaction to meeting or beating domestic earnings from the same quarter in the prior year.     

Financial analyst coverage for U.S. firms facing foreign competition: Evidence from trade liberalization

This study examines financial analyst coverage for U.S. firms following an increase in foreign product market competition. To capture exogenous shocks to domestic firms' competitive environments, we exploit a quasi‐natural experiment from large import tariff reductions over the 1984 to 2005 period in the manufacturing sector. Using data for the years before and after large tariff reductions, our difference‐in‐differences analysis shows evidence of a significant decrease in analyst coverage for incumbent U.S. firms when they face greater entry threat from foreign competitors. We also find that analysts with less firm‐specific experience and less accurate prior‐period forecasts are more likely to stop following the domestic firm when foreign competition intensifies. Overall, the findings suggest that foreign product market competition from global trade liberalization is an important determinant of financial analysts' coverage decisions.     

Do Analysts Strategically Employ Cash Flow Forecast Revisions to Offset Negative Earnings Forecast Revisions?

We investigate whether analysts use cash flow forecasts to reduce the impact of earnings forecast revisions (EFRs) on market participants. In particular, we focus on conflict between an analyst's concurrent cash flow and earnings forecast revisions. We hypothesize and find that analysts are more likely to issue a positive cash flow forecast revision when they issue a negative earnings forecast revision concurrently, but not the opposite, particularly for Fortune 500 firms. Furthermore, our supplementary analyses suggest that (1) some analysts optimistically bias cash flow forecasts when they issue negative earnings forecast revisions; (2) the market pays less attention to the historical accuracy of analyst cash flow forecasts, so analysts have some latitude to present their cash flow forecasts in an optimistic way; and (3) the market reacts mainly to the direction, not the magnitude, of cash flow forecast revisions. Overall, these findings suggest that analysts may strategically use cash flow forecasts in conjunction with earnings forecasts to maintain good management relationships.     

Considering interrelationships in strategic decisions

Accounting-based valuation studies of US firms tend to support Ohlson's proposition that residual income and book value numbers have information content in explaining observed market values. But European evidence also suggests that the conservative/liberal orientation of accounting tradition can produce significant national differences in associations between accounting performance measures and stock prices - in earnings behaviour, coefficient values and parameter sensitivity. We address these issues from an equity valuation perspective using Swedish data to assess the additional information content of Ohlson's information dynamics and analysts' forecasts in relation to market valuations in a more conservative accounting environment than the US. The study compares the explanatory and predictive power of Ohlson's (1995) residual income model (RIV) with a linear information dynamics version (LIM) that specifies both residual income and non-accounting information as autoregressive processes. Both versions are applied with, and without, future performance expectations from non-accounting sources (analysts' forecasts). As with US evidence, we find that the inclusion of analysts' forecasts improves both (i) cross-sectional correlations with current prices for both RIV and LIM models and (ii) the predictive power of RIV models in relation to future annual cross-sectional stock returns. The contribution of linear information dynamics is significant but varies across approaches. We also find significant differences between Swedish and US firms in earnings behaviour and associations between accounting numbers and market equity prices.