Manager-analyst conversations in earnings conference calls

Prior research finds that intraday stock prices move considerably during the discussion period of earnings conference calls. In this study, we explore what features of the manager-analyst dialogue during the discussion drive these price movements. We textually analyze the tone of managers and analysts and find that intraday prices react significantly to analyst tone, but not to management tone, for the full duration of the discussion. This effect strengthens when analyst tone is relatively negative. We then present intraday visual evidence that analysts are more neutral than managers over the call and that the tones of both parties drift downward as the call progresses. Overall, our findings illustrate how manager-analyst information exchanges evolve on earnings calls and indicate that analysts are the participants on earnings calls whose comments move stock prices during the discussion.     

Cross-sectional forecasts of the equity premium

If investors are myopic mean-variance optimizers, a stock's expected return is linearly related to its beta in the cross-section. The slope of the relation is the cross-sectional price of risk, which should equal the expected equity premium. We use this simple observation to forecast the equity-premium time series with the cross-sectional price of risk. We also introduce novel statistical methods for testing stock-return predictability based on endogenous variables whose shocks are potentially correlated with return shocks. Our empirical tests show that the cross-sectional price of risk (1) is strongly correlated with the market's yield measures and (2) predicts equity-premium realizations, especially in the first half of our 1927–2002 sample.     

Sell‐Side Analyst Research and Stock Comovement

We document that a stock's price around a recommendation or forecast covaries with prices of other stocks the issuing analyst covers. The effect of shared analyst coverage on stock price comovement extends beyond analyst activity days. A stock's daily returns covary with the returns of other stocks with which it shares analyst coverage. These links between stock price comovement and shared analyst coverage are consistent with the coverage‐specific information we find in earnings forecasts; analysts who cover both stocks in a pair expect future earnings of the stocks to be more highly correlated than do analysts who cover only one stock from the pair. Collectively, our evidence indicates that analyst research produces coverage‐specific spillovers that raise price comovement among stocks that share analyst coverage. The strength of these spillovers is comparable to spillovers from broad industry and market information in analyst research.     

To buy or not to buy? The value of contradictory analyst signals

We study the predictive ability of individual analyst target price changes for post-event abnormal stock returns within each recommendation category. Although prior studies generally demonstrate the investment value of target prices, we find that target price changes do not cause abnormal returns within each recommendation level. Instead, contradictory analyst signals (e.g., strong buy reiterations with large target price decreases) neutralize each other, whereas confirmatory signals reinforce each other. Further, our analysis reveals that large target price downgrades can be explained by preceding stock price decreases. However, upgrades are not preceded by stock price increases, thereby demonstrating asymmetric analyst behavior when adjusting target prices to stock prices. Our results suggest that investors should treat recommendations with caution when they are issued with large contradictory target price changes. Thus, instead of blindly following a recommendation, investors might put more weight on the change in the corresponding target price and consider transaction costs.     

Demand and productivity components of business cycles: Estimates and implications

Standard stochastic growth models provide theoretical restrictions on output decomposition which can be used to investigate whether productivity shocks played a major role in observed business cycles. Applying these restrictions to US data leads to the following findings: (i) Business cycles implied by productivity shocks are mildly correlated to overall fluctuations and help account for a few episodes of US postwar recessions. However, only 20% of US fluctuations can be explained by these shocks. (ii) Most fluctuations seem instead to be due to “nominal demand” shocks, i.e. shocks which move output and prices in the same direction, but whose effects on output are ultimately transitory. (iii) Canonical sticky price models in the new-neoclassical synthesis tradition can account for the cyclical comovements of output and prices, but canonical, frictionless, RBC models cannot.     

The role of the business press in the pricing of analysts’ recommendation revisions

We investigate the information-dissemination role of the business press by examining the coverage of analyst recommendation revisions. Consistent with the press providing wider dissemination of analyst reports, we find evidence that coverage of analyst recommendation revisions significantly increases the initial market reaction to these revisions and decreases the subsequent price drift. Furthermore, we find that news flash coverage, rather than in-depth coverage, of a recommendation revision drives both the initial market reaction results and drift results. Finally, we show that broader press coverage influences the activities of large-trade institutional investors but not high-frequency traders. Overall, our findings suggest a complementary role between analysts and the business press: increased dissemination of recommendation revisions, rather than information creation on the part of the business press, serves to better inform the market about analyst recommendation revision decisions.

     

Self‐Selection and the Forecasting Abilities of Female Equity Analysts

This paper investigates whether there are systematic differences between the forecasting style and abilities of female and male analysts, and whether market participants recognize these differences. My key conjecture is that only female analysts with superior forecasting abilities enter the profession due to a perception of discrimination in the analyst labor market. Consistent with this conjecture, I find that female analysts issue bolder and more accurate forecasts and their accuracy is higher in market segments in which their concentration is lower. Further, the stock market participants are aware of the male–female skill differences. They respond more strongly to the forecast revisions by female analysts even though those analysts get less media coverage. The short‐term market reaction is incomplete, however, because it is followed by a strong post‐revision drift. The perception of abilities is similar in the analyst labor market, where female analysts are more likely to move up to high‐status brokerage firms, while their downward career mobility is lower. Collectively, these results indicate that female analysts have better‐than‐average skill due to self‐selection and market participants are at least partially able to recognize their superior abilities.     

Star Analysts,Overreaction, and Synchronicity: Evidence from China and the United States

This paper examines star analyst coverage, investor overreaction, and stock price synchronicity in the Chinese and US markets. In China, we find that star analyst coverage can induce investor overreaction, such that it is negatively correlated with price synchronicity. This overreaction effect is particularly pronounced for stocks with primarily individual investors. In contrast, in the United States, we find that star analyst coverage is positively related to synchronicity and is not significantly associated with investor overreaction. Our overall findings imply that the heterogeneous nature of investors in a market drives the association among star analyst coverage, overreaction, and stock price synchronicity.     

How quickly do investors react to analyst reports? Evidence from reports released outside trading hours

This study analyzes whether the publication timing of reports released outside trading hours affects subsequent price drift to determine if investors respond immediately to analyst reports. Significant price drifts are observed for revisions in target prices, especially when a report is released within two hours before the market opens. Furthermore, the influence of publication timing is crucial when investors must process information about earnings announcements and multiple reports. Conversely, the influence is irrelevant to the visibility of reports (e.g., broker size and star analyst status). The identified limitation of investors' response is attributable to their limited information-processing capacity.     

Monetary policy for inattentive economies

We offer a contribution to the analysis of optimal monetary policy. We begin with a critical assessment of the existing literature, arguing that most work is based on implausible models of inflation-output dynamics. We then suggest that this problem may be solved with some recent behavioral models, which assume that price setters are slow to incorporate macroeconomic information into the prices they set. A specific such model is developed and used to derive optimal policy. In response to shocks to productivity and aggregate demand, optimal policy is price level targeting. Base drift in the price level, which is implicit in the inflation targeting regimes currently used in many central banks, is not desirable in this model. When shocks to desired markups are added, optimal policy is flexible targeting of the price level. That is, the central bank should allow the price level to deviate from its target for a while in response to these supply shocks, but it should eventually return the price level to its target path. Optimal policy can also be described as an elastic price standard: the central bank allows the price level to deviate from its target when output is expected to deviate from its natural rate.     

Private information flow and price discovery in the U.S. treasury market

Using intraday data, we identify the intensity of private information flow in the U.S. Treasury market. Our results show that the intensity of private information flow is highly correlated with public information shocks and higher for longer maturity bonds. More importantly, we find that bond price changes associated with high intensity of private information flow tend to be persistent, whereas those associated with low intensity of private information flow are more likely reversed. While public information and private information are the main determinants of bond price variations on days with news announcements, private information and liquidity shocks are important determinants of bond price variations on days with no significant events. Finally, we show that the depth of limit order book is inversely related to the intensity of private information flow. Nevertheless, informed dealers do not seem to use hidden orders to disguise their trading intentions.     

Do brokerage houses add value? The market impact of UK sell-side analyst recommendation changes

This paper reports on the first full study investigating the economic role of sell-side analysts’ stock recommendations in the UK market. We also explore whether UK analysts are, in practice, influenced by the same biases as that reported for their US counterparts.We find that share prices are significantly influenced by analysts’ recommendation changes, not only at the time of the recommendation change but also in subsequent months. The price reaction to new sell recommendations is greater than the price reaction to new buy recommendations and exhibits post-recommendation drift which is consistent with initial underreaction to bad news. Returns generated are influenced, cross-sectionally, by factors associated with a firm's information environment and analyst incentives such as size, same-sign earnings forecast revisions and recommendation changes that skip a rank.We find that UK analysts’ investment recommendations in practice appear less susceptible to potential conflicts of interest than their US counterparts. The ratio of new sell to buy recommendations is higher in the UK and a greater proportion of such recommendations are accompanied by same-sign earnings forecast revisions than their equivalents in the US. We find brokerage house investment banking relationships do not appear to impact (adversely) on abnormal returns.     

Liquidity commonality and high frequency trading: Evidence from the French stock market

High frequency trading (HFT) depends on sophisticated algorithms to closely monitor price changes across securities. Theory predicts this technological advantage should translate into market-wide liquidity co-variation, by transmitting information-based liquidity shocks. Using a dataset of orders and trades from the French stock market, we investigate whether HFT algorithms constitute a source of systematic liquidity risk. We demonstrate that, across securities, the liquidity offered by high frequency traders is significantly less diverse than that of traditional traders; this finding is in line with the cross-asset learning hypothesis. The excessive co-movement in liquidity is also partly explained by common market making rules. In periods of increased market stress, we find HFT, designated market making, and order size to be important sources of liquidity commonality. Our results have policy implications for market regulators in Paris, suggesting the inclusion of maximum spread-limit rules in market making contracts will reduce the possibility of liquidity drying up when markets are in turmoil.     

Tax distortions and the case for price stability

We investigate the case for price stability in the general version of the New Keynesian (NNS) model with capital and several shocks. The model includes, in addition to the standard imperfect competition and monetary frictions, a non-trivial, endogenous tax distortion. We find that the case for perfect price stability is not significantly weakened. Optimal policy tolerates a small amount of output gap and price variability by reacting less strongly to supply and fiscal shocks in comparison to a policy that aims at perfect price stabilization.     

Analyst underreaction and the post-forecast revision drift

The post-forecast revision drift (PFRD), the phenomenon of delayed stock price reactions to analyst forecast revisions, is a well-documented market anomaly. Prior research attributes PFRD to underreaction by investors to analyst forecast revisions. This study investigates the role of the analyst forecast revision process itself in the PFRD anomaly. Using a large sample of US firms, we confirm prior findings of a positive serial correlation (momentum) in individual analysts’ revisions to their earnings forecasts and, based on both indirect and direct tests, document a positive association between this momentum and PFRD. Further analyses reveal that both the forecast revision momentum and PFRD vary in similar ways with respect to the nature of the news driving the revisions and the information environment. Collectively, our findings show that underreaction by individual analysts in the forecast revision process is an important contributor to the PFRD phenomenon.     

External shocks, U.S. monetary policy and macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging markets

Estimated structural VARs show that external shocks are an important source of macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging markets. Furthermore, U.S. monetary policy shocks affect interest rates and the exchange rate in a typical emerging market quickly and strongly. The price level and real output in a typical emerging market respond to U.S. monetary policy shocks by more than the price level and real output in the U.S. itself. These findings are consistent with the idea that “when the U.S. sneezes, emerging markets catch a cold.” At the same time, U.S. monetary policy shocks are not important for emerging markets relative to other kinds of external shocks.     

The efficiency of earnings forecast pricing

Prior research has suggested that the information content associated with analysts’ forecast revisions is not immediately incorporated into a firm’s stock price. We find that the apparent anomaly is concentrated in low-priced firms that receive favorable earnings revisions. Variables (such as analyst coverage and celebrity status) cannot reliably explain variations in price formations. Finally, we find that the magnitude of the post-forecast revision drift has decreased after 2002. Overall, our results suggest that the analysts’ forecast revisions anomaly can be explained by a combination of random statistical variations and transaction costs.     

Is Nonlinear Drift Implied by the Short End of the Term Structure?

Nonlinear drift models of the short rate are estimated usingdata on the short end of the term structure, where the cross-sectionalrelation is obtained by an analytical approximation. The findingsreveal that (i) nonlinear physical drift is not implied unlessit is strongly affected by cross-sectional dimensions of thedata; (ii) nonlinear risk-neutral drift that allows for fastmean reversion for high rates is desirable to explain and predictobserved patterns of yield spreads; and (iii) for higher frequencydata from which transitory shocks are removed, (ii) still remainsvalid although the nonlinearity is somewhat reduced.     

Decimal Pricing and Information-Based Trading: Tick Size and Informational Efficiency of Asset Price

Abstract:  In this study we analyze the effect of tick size on information-based trading. Although prior studies provide extensive evidence on the effect of tick size on market quality measures such as spreads, depths, and return volatility, there is little evidence as to the effect of tick size on the informational efficiency of asset price. Our results indicate that the probability of information-based trading during the post-decimal period is significantly greater than the corresponding figure during the pre-decimal period. We also show that the increase in information-based trading after decimalization cannot be attributed to concurrent changes in stock attributes. We interpret our findings as evidence that the smaller tick size under penny pricing encourages information-based trading and thereby raises the informational efficiency of asset price.     

Oil shocks and the zero bound on nominal interest rates

Beginning in 2008, in many advanced economies, policy rates reached their zero lower bound (ZLB) and almost at the same time, oil prices started rising again. We analyze how the ZLB affects the propagation of oil shocks. As these shocks move inflation and output in opposite directions, their effects on economic activity are cushioned when monetary policy is constrained. The burst of inflation from an oil price increase lowers real interest rates at the ZLB and stimulates the interest-sensitive component of GDP, offsetting the usual contractionary effects. We show that the mitigation of the output decline from the zero lower bound depends on the source of the shock and on the persistence that alternative shocks induce in the price of oil.