We investigate if sell-side security analysts exhibit relative persistence in their stock picking ability. We find that analysts whose recommendation revisions earned the most (least) positive excess returns in the past continue to outperform (underperform) other analysts in the future. Further,...

We examine market participants' reactions to dividend changes conditional on earnings quality. We define earnings quality as the extent to which current earnings are associated with one-year, two-year, or three-year ahead operating cash flows. Controlling for the magnitude of the dividend...

Controlling for other determinants of the cost of capital, we find that firms with repeated large earnings surprises experience a higher cost of equity capital. This finding holds regardless of the sign of the earnings surprises, but firms that consistently report negative surprises have...