We document that stocks with the strongest prior 12-month returns experience a significant average market-adjusted return of 1.58 percent during the five trading days before their earnings announcements and a significant average market-adjusted return of 1.86 percent in the five trading days...

This study compares the profitability of security recommendations issued by investment banks and independent research firms. During the 1996 through mid-2003 time period, the average daily abnormal return to independent research firm buy recommendations exceeds that of the investment banks by...

This paper analyzes the distribution of stock ratings at investment banks and brokerage firms and examines their relation to the profitability of analysts' recommendations. Consistent with prior work, we find that the percentage of buy recommendations increased substantially from 1996-2000....

After a string of years in which security analysts' top stock picks significantly outperformed their pans, the year 2000 was a disaster. During that year the stocks least favorably recommended by analysts earned an annualized market-adjusted return of 48.66 percent while the stocks most highly...

This paper tests for the existence of performance persistence in brokerage house stock recommendations. For the period 1987-1996 we show that purchasing the current-year buy recommendations of the brokerage houses with the best prior performance earned an annualized geometric mean raw return of...

In this paper we document that an investment strategy based on the consensus (average) analyst recommendations of security analysts earns positive returns. For the period 1986-1996, a portfolio of stocks most highly recommended by analysts earned an annualized geometric mean return of 18.8...

From January 1996 through June 2003, the average daily abnormal return to independent research firm buy recommendations exceeds that of investment bank buy recommendations by 3.1 basis points (almost 8 percentage points annualized). Investment bank buy recommendation underperformance is more...

This paper analyzes the distribution of stock ratings at investment banks and brokerage firms and examines whether these distributions can predict the profitability of analysts' recommendations. We document that the percentage of buys decreased steadily starting in mid-2000, likely due, at least...