We investigate the implications of firms’ benchmark-beating patterns with respect to analysts’ quarterly cash flow forecasts for firms’ current capital market valuation and their future performance. We hypothesize that nonnegative earnings surprises are more likely to be supported by real...

We examine the overall and individual analyst performance of 12-month-ahead target price forecasts over the 10-years, 2000-2009. Implied target price-based returns exceed actual returns by an average of 15%, and absolute target price forecast errors average 45%. At the end of the 12-month...