Prior research suggests that various financial anomalies are related to investors' inability to process historical earnings and price information. In particular, analysts' failure to incorporate appropriately the serial correlation in earnings surprises provides at least a partial explanation...

In this paper, we examine whether sell-side security analysts generate more accurate quarterly earnings forecasts and more profitable stock recommendations as their experience with a specific firm increases. We also examine whether the market relies more on forecasts made by analysts who have...

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...

We examine if analysts more fully incorporate prior earnings and returns information in their current quarter forecasts as their experience following a firm increases. We measure analyst firm-specific forecasting experience as the number of prior quarters for which the analyst has issued an...

We investigate if earnings forecast accuracy matters to security analysts by examining its association with analyst turnover. Controlling for firm- and time-period effects, forecast horizon, and industry forecasting experience, we find that an analyst is more likely to turn over if his forecast...

In this study, we examine whether sell-side security analysts gain access to value relevant information through political connections. We measure analysts' political connections based on political contributions at the brokerage house level. We argue that if brokerages are able to obtain private...