While levels of actual and consensus forecast earnings per share (EPS) vary with scale (measured typically by share price), magnitudes of the difference do not vary with scale. That is, forecast errors within a certain range (e.g., plus/minus 5 cents per share) are equally likely for both...

We document a counter-intuitive finding regarding analyst forecasts of quarterly earnings per share (EPS): magnitudes of deviations from benchmarks - individual forecasts versus consensus (dispersion) and consensus versus actual (forecast error) - do not vary with scale. Seasonally-differenced...