Do Analyst Experience, Location and Gender Affect the Performance of Broker Recommendations in Europe?

We examine how broker characteristics impact the performance of their recommendations in Europe. In contrast to extant research, we focus on a non-U.S. sample that post-dates the important regulatory changes of 2003-2004. Our research has three intriguing findings. First, we show that more experienced analysts produce better long recommendations than less experienced analysts. However, the more junior analysts outperform on short recommendations. Second, we find the global analysts outperform local analysts on local stock buy recommendation. However, local analysts have the edge in sell recommendations. Finally, in contrast to recent research, we find no statistical difference between the performance of male and female analysts