Fundamental Salience and Analyst Forecast Bias

We find that the salience distortions of past fundamental information significantly predict future analyst forecast errors in both Chinese and U.S. markets. Fundamental salience is more potent in distorting long-term beliefs. Predictable forecast errors are more pronounced in firms with opaque earnings. Moreover, the dispersion of analyst forecasts is significantly reduced in response to salient positive earnings. Firms that experience salient positive earnings are likely to suffer weaker returns when actual earnings are finally realized. Our results remain robust in an aggregate predictive regression. These results suggest that salient thinking could explain some of the biased beliefs of analysts