Managerial behavior differs considerably when managers report quarterly profits versus losses. When they report profits, managers seek to just meet or slightly beat analyst estimates. When they report losses, managers do not attempt to meet or slightly beat analyst estimates. Instead, managers...

Little is known about which forecasts to select when all forecasts are not equally recent. This paper uses security analysts' annual earnings forecasts to examine this issue. The comparative predictive accuracy of the mean and three timely composites is examined, where the three timely...

We investigate firms' propensity to meet analysts' forecasts of cash flows and earnings, and identify factors pertaining to market valuation, financial analysts, and firms' financial condition to explain why firms sometimes meet cash flow forecasts but miss earnings forecasts. Firms meet cash...

We consider forecast guidance as a mechanism that managers use to avoid negative earnings surprises. Modeling forecast guidance using methods by Matsumoto, [Accounting Review 77 (3) (2002) 483-514] and Bartov et al. [Journal of Accounting and Economics 33 (2) (2002) 173-204], we show that...

Estimates of future quarterly earnings are of prime importance to capital market participants for formulating their investment decisions. Superior ability to forecast future earnings may enable investors to reap extraordinary returns by trading in the affected securities. The extant forecast...

We examine interactions between analyst earnings forecasts and management earnings forecasts by investigating: (1) managers' comparative efficiency relative to analysts at incorporating past earnings changes, accruals, stock returns and analyst-based earnings surprises into their earnings...