We test the implications of anchoring bias associated with forecast earnings per share (FEPS) for forecast errors, earnings surprises, stock returns, and stock splits. We find that analysts make optimistic (pessimistic) forecasts when a firm's FEPS is lower (higher) than the industry median....

We explore analysts' earnings forecast data to improve upon one popular disagreement measure — the analyst forecast dispersion measure — proposed by Diether, Malloy, and Scherbina (2002). Our analysis suggests that changes in the standard deviations of forecasted earnings can work as a...