Analysts' forecasts of Japanese firms' earnings: additional evidence

This article examines analysts' forecasts of Japanese firms' earnings during Japan's economic burst period in the 1990s. Using the evidence of analyst earnings forecasts in the United States as a benchmark, the article documents the following three findings. First, whereas the forecast accuracy of U.S. analysts following U.S. firms improves over time, the forecast accuracy of U.S. and Japanese analysts following Japanese firms does not. Second, whereas decreases in forecast errors of U.S. analysts following U.S. firms are best explained by decreases in forecast bias of the analysts, increases in forecast errors of U.S. and Japanese analysts following Japanese firms are best explained by increases in the frequency of losses experienced by Japanese firms. Third, Japanese analysts forecast earnings less accurately than do U.S. analysts. These findings reflect the difficulty of producing accurate earnings forecasts during economic downturns. They also suggest that Japanese analysts are more bound than their U.S. counterparts by cultural ties that impede forecast accuracy.     

Terrorism activities and long-term annual management forecasts

We study the effects of terrorist attacks on firms’ long-term annual management earnings forecasts bias. We find that the managers of firms located closer to the epicenters of attacks are more likely to issue optimistic long-term annual earnings forecasts relative to the managers of a control group of unaffected firms. The exposure effect is stronger for more severe terrorist events, and firms with more uncertain fundamentals and less geographic diversification. In addition, we document that managers’ forecast optimism intensifies for firms with stronger negative stock market reaction to the terrorist event, for CEOs with higher ability and for companies that are more likely to issue equity or engage in acquisitions following the terrorist event. Overall, our results are consistent with the idea that long-term annual earnings forecasts are used by managers to counterbalance the short-term pessimistic response to terrorist attacks.     

Initiating coverage,broker reputation and management earnings forecasts in Australia

We examine more than 5000 recommendations made by Australian brokers in the period 1996–2001. We find evidence that initiating recommendations produce greater share price responses than continuing recommendations, particularly for hold, underperform and sell recommendations. We also find evidence that initiating recommendations made by higher‐reputation brokers and those made in the absence of a management earnings forecast attract different share price responses. Finally, we find that share price responses to initiating recommendations, conditional on the market consensus recommendation, are significantly different to continuing recommendations.     

Public regulatory reform and management earnings forecasts in a low private litigation environment

We examine the impact of continuous disclosure regulatory reform on the likelihood, frequency and qualitative characteristics of management earnings forecasts issued in New Zealand’s low private litigation environment. Using a sample of 720 earnings forecasts issued by 94 firms listed on the New Zealand Exchange before and after the reform (1999–2005), we provide strong evidence of significant changes in forecasting behaviour in the post‐reform period. Specifically, firms were more likely to issue earnings forecasts to pre‐empt earnings announcements and, in contrast to findings in other legal settings, those earnings forecasts exhibited higher frequency and improved qualitative characteristics (better precision and accuracy). An important implication of our findings is that public regulatory reforms may have a greater benefit in a low private litigation environment and thus add to the global debate about the effectiveness of alternative public regulatory reforms of corporate requirements.