This paper analyzes empirically the relation between financial analysts' recommendation profitability and their forecast accuracy and shows that contrary to intuition the group of most successful recommendations is not associated with the highest accuracy on average. The finding that best...

We address whether analysts bias earnings forecast revisions and convey the bias using forecast revision consistency, i.e., the extent to which analyst reports with earnings forecast revisions include stock recommendation and target price revisions consistent in sign with the earnings forecast...

Analysts' functions are divided into discovery and interpretation roles, but separating between the two is non-trivial. We conjecture that analysts' interpretation skill can be gauged by their forecast revisions following material unanticipated news — in particular following non-earnings 8-K...

We analyze the relation between earning forecast accuracy and expected profitability of financial analysts. Modeling forecast errors with a multivariate Gaussian distribution, a complete characterization of the payoff of each analyst is provided. In particular, closed-form expressions for the...

In this study, we examine the effect of accrual-based earnings management on the association between managers' earnings forecast errors and accruals, which we label “managers' accrual-related forecast bias.” We build on extensive research which finds that managers engage in accrual-based...

The study tests for changes in default prediction accuracy following the country-level switch to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in 20 European Union (EU) and nonEU jurisdictions. Using a default prediction model that combines both accounting and market inputs, we find that...

We examine the effect of media competition on analyst forecast properties in an international setting using 113,436 firm-year observations from 32 countries spanning 2000 through 2012. We find that firms in countries with stronger media competition enjoy more accurate, less optimistically...

This paper documents a dual role for disclosure. In addition to the traditional role of alleviating information asymmetry, firms are motivated to disclose to attract limited investor resources and order flow away from other firms (Fishman and Hagerty, 1989). Higher competition for investors...

We examine whether current-period stock prices influence analysts' earnings forecasts. Using an experiment with financial analysts, we find that analysts updating their earnings forecasts in response to a management earnings forecast provide different forecasts depending on the stock price...

This paper examines how the level of disaggregation in earnings forecasts influences investors' reactions to earnings surprises. Previous research finds that investors respond more favorably to a disaggregated forecast than to an aggregated one immediately after the forecast. However, given that...