Using a uniquely hand-collected dataset, we examine how financial analysts react to expectations management in the post-Regulation Fair Disclosure (FD) period. We find evidence that management issues pessimistic public guidance to lower analysts’ expectations to a beatable level in the...

Purpose – Previous research has provided mixed evidence on the relative importance of three earnings thresholds that managers seek to achieve: avoiding losses, avoiding earnings declines and avoiding negative earnings surprises. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether...

This paper investigates the capital market consequences of expectations management in the postRegulation Fair Disclosure period. Results show that investors “punish” firms that deliberately issue pessimistic public guidance to dampen analysts' expectations to a beatable level in the...