Anti-selective disclosure regulation and analyst forecast accuracy and usefulness

We investigate regulations intended to stop managers from privately disclosing corporate information to analysts in a setting with enhanced potential to isolate regulatory effects: the European Union (EU) Market Abuse Directive (MAD), a common regulation implemented by member states with varying sanctions and enforcement resources. Following the implementation of MAD in a country, analyst forecasts become more accurate, with relatively little of the effect attributable to increased voluntary public disclosure by covered firms. The effect of MAD on analyst accuracy is stronger in countries with more stringent enforcement and sanction systems. Although the improvement in accuracy is associated with the implementation of MAD alone, stock prices do not respond more strongly to analyst forecast releases until after market-trading enforcement improves under subsequent EU legislation (MiFID).     

Mandatory IFRS adoption and analyst forecast accuracy: the role of financial statement-based forecasts and analyst characteristics

Review of Accounting Studies - This study examines whether the improvement in analyst forecast accuracy around mandatory IFRS adoption is associated with the improvement in the accuracy of...     

Brokerage M&As and the peer effect on analyst forecast accuracy

We examine whether the impact of a change in the number of analysts a brokerage firm employs has an asymmetric effect on the forecasting ability of superior and inferior analysts. Specifically, we show that following brokerage M&As only superior analysts benefit from a rise in having a larger number of peers. In addition, we find that the market does not account for the improved performance among superior analysts, and argue that this creates an opportunity for investors to capitalize on this.     

Informative or distracting: CSR disclosure of peer firms and analyst forecast accuracy

We investigate the relationship between the CSR disclosure of peer firms and the analyst forecast accuracy of the focal firm. We find a negative association between peer CSR disclosure and analyst forecast error of the focal firm, indicating that peer CSR disclosure is informative. This negative association is more pronounced when the information environment of the focal firm is worse, when the correlation in fundamentals between the focal firm and its peers is higher, when the business of the focal firm is less complex, when the focal firm has more expert analyst coverage, when the focal firm's financial performance is more sensitive to CSR engagement, or when the quality of peer CSR disclosure is higher. Overall, we show that peer CSR disclosure conveys value-relevant information about the focal firm. Our study enriches the literature on both analyst forecasts and peer information, and we also provide important implications for practitioners in understanding the role of CSR disclosure in capital markets.     

Disposition effect and analyst forecast dispersion

Behavioral finance theories posit that behavioral biases are more pronounced when there is higher information uncertainty about fundamentals. This paper examines the relation between the disposition effect, the tendency to ride losses and realize gains, and dispersion in financial analysts’ earnings forecasts for a sample of large U.S. discount brokerage accounts from January 1991 to December 1996. I find that the disposition effect is exacerbated in stocks with higher analyst forecast dispersion. In particular, the disposition effect is 10% in stocks in the highest forecast dispersion quintile and not significant in the lowest forecast dispersion quintile. The driving factor behind these findings is investors’ higher propensity to realize gains when facing higher information uncertainty. The results are robust to controlling for firm size, analyst coverage, idiosyncratic volatility, turnover, and past market-adjusted returns. The results provide supportive evidence for a behavioral bias explanation of the disposition effect consistent with mean-reversion beliefs for winners and loss actualization avoidance for losers.     

Distress risk puzzle and analyst forecast optimism

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - A general consensus in the literature is that financial analysts make optimistic forecasts. That is, they tend to underreact to negative but...     

Stock market openness and analyst forecast bias

Biases in analysts’ forecasts can be reduced not only through regulation but also through market mechanisms. In 2014, China launched the Shanghai-Hong Kong Connect program, which opened part of its domestic equity market to foreign investors. The implementation of this program provides a quasi-natural experimental setting to explore whether stock market openness plays a governance role in brokerage firms and minimizes their affiliated analysts' forecast biases. We find that the participation of foreign institutional investors mitigates the forecast biases of affiliated analysts. We also show that these analysts exert more significant effort by conducting more site visits. Our findings suggest that market liberalization can help improving the quality of analysts’ forecasts.     

Trading incentives to meet the analyst forecast

We examine stock sales as a managerial incentive to help explain the discontinuity around the analyst forecast benchmark. We find that the likelihood of just meeting versus just missing the analyst forecast is strongly associated with subsequent managerial stock sales. Moreover, we provide evidence that managers manage earnings prior to just meeting the threshold and selling their shares. Finally, the relation between just meeting and subsequently selling shares does not hold for non-manager insiders, who arguably cannot affect the earnings outcome, and is weaker in the presence of an independent board, suggesting that good corporate governance mitigates this strategic behavior.

IAS 39 reclassification choice and analyst earnings forecast properties

In October 2008, the International Accounting Standards Board amended IAS 39 to allow banks to retroactively reclassify financial assets that previously were measured at fair value to amortized cost. By reclassifying financial assets, a bank can potentially avoid recognizing the unrealized fair value losses and thereby increase its income and regulatory capital during a market downturn. We examine the implications of the reclassification decision by banks for the properties of financial analyst earnings forecasts during 2008–2009, when economic conditions were highly volatile. We find that the reclassification choice during the financial crisis reduced analyst forecast accuracy and increased forecast dispersion. We also find that the observed decline in analyst forecasting ability is limited to the year of adoption when the economic environment was highly volatile.     

New evidence on price impact of analyst forecast revisions

Previous research shows a positive relationship between consensus forecast revisions and stock returns in developed markets. We obtain new evidence from four major Asia-Pacific markets that suggest that abnormal returns are related to latest forecast revisions. The price impact of negative revisions is consistently stronger than that of the positive revisions. We also found considerable differences in price impact between developed and emerging markets for positive revisions, while no such difference is detected for negative revisions. The latest forecast revisions and category of analysts (those working in international broking firms) appear to be two key determinants of abnormal stock returns.     

An examination of the effects of management earnings forecast form and explanations on financial analyst forecast revisions

Using a sample of 978 quarterly management earnings-per-share forecasts made during the period 1993 to 1999, we document that financial analyst revisions to management earnings forecasts are a function of management forecast form. More precise forecasts (measured three different ways) lead to greater revision of financial analyst consensus EPS forecasts for a given level of unexpected earnings as predicted by Kim and Verrecchia (1991) and Bayesian adjustment models. Also, consistent with our arguments, maximum forecasts are interpreted as bad news by analysts. Our results, while consistent with theory, are inconsistent with recent experimental studies which do not reject the null hypothesis of no effect of management earnings forecast form on the association between unexpected earnings and financial analyst forecast revisions. We also re-examine Baginski, Hassell, and Kimbrough's (2004) finding that attributions used to explain management forecasts affect the reaction to the forecast using analyst data. Consistent with their findings using stock prices, the attribution presence (especially external attributions) increases financial analyst revisions pursuant to management forecasts.     

Assessing the accuracy of financial analyst security return predictions

The accuracy of financial analyst security return prediction is assessed via two distinct measurement methodologies (1) correlation analysis and (2) forecast error metric analysis. Analyst performance achievement is evaluated relative to a variety of statistical models, a naive prediction model and a theoretically derived prediction model. The results of the correlation and error metric analysis provided contrasting indications of financial analyst performance.     

Analyst characteristics, timing of forecast revisions, and analyst forecasting ability

We first examine whether analysts with certain characteristics that prior research has identified are related to superior forecasting ability systematically time their forecast revisions later in the fiscal quarter. We then examine whether this superior ability persists after controlling for the timing advantage by using relative forecast error, a measure that largely eliminates the timing advantage of recent forecasts. Using a sample of quarterly earnings forecast revisions over the 20-year period from 1990 to 2009, we find that analysts with more firm-specific and general experience and more accurate prior-period forecasts, analysts employed by larger brokerage firms, and analysts who follow fewer industries and companies tend to revise forecasts later in the quarter. We also find that analyst characteristics that are positively correlated with revision timing are negatively related to relative forecast errors. These results are consistent with analyst characteristics being useful proxies for analyst forecasting ability and analysts with greater ability revising forecasts later in the quarter.     

On the relation between predictable market returns and predictable analyst forecast errors

We investigate the relation between predictable market returns and predictable analyst forecast errors. Perfect correlation between predictable components of forecast errors and abnormal returns would lend credence to the view that pricing anomalies are not merely an artifact of inadequately controlled risk. Our evidence implies an imperfect correlation. Moreover, we find that while the predictable component of abnormal returns is significantly associated with future forecast errors, trading strategies based directly on the predictable component of forecast errors are not profitable. Further implications of our findings are that predictable components of analysts’ forecast errors are robust with respect to loss functions and analysts’ earnings forecasts may significantly diverge from the market expectations.     

分析师特征券商规模与盈利预测

本文选取2002-2008年国泰安分析师预测数据,考察分析师特征对盈利预测误差的影响.研究发现,分析9币预测经验、券商规模、努力程度与其预测误差呈显著负相关;任务难度与其预测误差显著正相关.进一步的研究显示,分析师个人特征以及券商规模对其盈利预测误差的影响在盈利公司和亏损公司之间存在着非对称性,男女性别的差异也导致分析师个人特征在影响盈利预测准确度上存在着系统性差异.本文的研究结论为公众投资者判断分析师预测能力提供了必要的经验证据和决策支持.     

Does the financial analysts' usage of non-financial information influence the analysts' forecast accuracy? Some evidence from the Belgian sell-side financial analyst

This paper examines whether the use of non-financial information by sell-side financial analysts influences the accuracy of analysts’ forecasts. The research findings, based on a survey of Belgian financial analysts, suggest that financial analysts who use more forward-looking information and more internal-structure information offer more accurate forecasts. Furthermore, the listed Belgian firms examined in this study have improved their non-financial information reporting over time. However, neither the frequency nor the quantity of non-financial information mentioned by financial analysts in their reports appears to have increased over time.     

Ownership structure and forecast accuracy in Spain

This article examines how analysts respond to specific ownership structure characteristics by studying the accuracy of their forecasts after the release of the first Spanish corporate governance code and before IFRS were adopted. Specifically, we analyse the influence of ownership concentration, bank ownership and insider ownership on analyst forecast errors. Overall the results show a positive and significant influence of bank ownership on analyst forecast accuracy, which suggests that bank ownership leads to closer monitoring of management and a reduction in analyst forecast errors. However, the presence of large shareholders and insiders in the ownership structure of the firm does not significantly affect the accuracy of financial analysts. This research provides investors with a more refined sense of how analyst forecasts might be affected through the composition of the ownership structure in a context of high concentration of ownership, relevant presence of banks in firms as creditors and shareholders, and local GAAP.     

XBRL’s impact on analyst forecast behavior: An empirical study

This paper investigates the benefits of mandatory adoption of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) in the U.S. Using a sample of Phase I and Phase II filers in year 2009 and 2010, we examine whether there exists a positive association between the number of analysts following a firm as well as analyst forecast accuracy and the XBRL mandate by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Our empirical results demonstrate a significant positive association between mandatory XBRL adoption and both analyst following and forecast accuracy. In addition, our findings show that such an association is stronger for Phase I filers than for Phase II filers in 2010. The magnitude of the association between XBRL mandate and analyst following is also larger for Phase I filers in year two than in year one of adoption. Our findings not only support the SEC’s requirement of detailed tagging of footnotes but also show that the benefits of adopting XBRL are realized regardless of errors found and concerns raised at the early stage of adoption.     

Removing predictable analyst forecast errors to improve implied cost of equity estimates

Prior research documents a weak association between the implied cost of equity inferred from analyst forecasts and realized returns. It points to predictable errors in analyst forecasts as a possible cause. We show that removing predictable errors from analyst forecasts leads to a much stronger association between implied cost of equity estimates obtained from adjusted forecasts and realized returns after controlling for cash flow news and discount rate news. An estimate of implied risk premium based on the average of four commonly used methods after making adjustments for predictable errors exhibits strong correlations with future realized returns as well as the lowest measurement error. Overall, our results confirm the validity of implied cost of equity estimates as measures of expected returns. Future research using implied cost of equity should remove predictable errors from implied cost of capital estimates and then average across multiple metrics.     

The effect of changes in Japanese consolidation policy on analyst forecast error

Our broad research objective is to investigate whether convergence towards international standards improves the decision usefulness of information. Recent changes in Japanese consolidated reporting practices to better align with international standards provide an excellent setting to investigate this research objective. Specifically, we examine the effect of changes in Japanese consolidation policy on financial analysts’ perceptions of the persistence of subsidiary earnings. Previous research provides evidence that, prior to the change in consolidation policy, consolidated financial information was not used efficiently in the Japanese capital market. Prior research finds a positive relation between subsidiary earnings and future stock returns in Japan, indicating that investors underestimate the persistence of subsidiary earnings. Consistent with prior research using stock returns, we find that financial analysts also underestimate the persistence of subsidiary earnings in Japan. We document a significant positive relation between subsidiary earnings and future forecast errors of consolidated earnings. However, following the changes in consolidation policy in Japan, we find that financial analysts no longer underestimate the persistence of subsidiary earnings. Changes in Japanese consolidation policy in conformance with international standards increase decision usefulness by improving the ability of financial analysts to predict overall firm performance. One limitation of our research design relates to the adoption of mandated accounting policy changes by all sample firms in the same calendar time. This makes it difficult to control for the impact of correlated omitted variables. While this concern can never be completely eliminated, we provide additional tests that examine sample partitions by firm size and industry. These additional tests support the primary findings that Japan’s efforts to converge consolidation rules with international standards have improved analysts’ consolidated earnings forecasts.