Managerial behavior differs considerably when managers report quarterly profits versus losses. When they report profits, managers seek to just meet or slightly beat analyst estimates. When they report losses, managers do not attempt to meet or slightly beat analyst estimates. Instead, managers...

We show that U.S. analysts alter their behavior in response to a randomly assigned shock that exogenously varies the timeliness and cost of accessing companies' mandatory disclosures in the cross-section of investors: analysts reduce the number of stocks they cover, issue less optimistic and...

We investigate whether investors are misled by firms that exclude particular expenses in calculating non-GAAP earnings in order to beat analysts' earnings forecasts. Our empirical analyses suggest that firms that pursue a strategy of non-GAAP reporting to beat analysts' earnings forecasts not...

We correlate analysts' forecast errors with temporal variation in investor sentiment. We find that when sentiment is high, analysts' forecasts of one-year-ahead earnings and long-term earnings growth are relatively more optimistic for “uncertain” or “difficult to value” firms. Adding...

Prior research on equity analysts focuses almost exclusively on those employed by sell-side investment banks and brokerage houses. Yet investment firms undertake their own buy-side research and their analysts face different stock selection and recommendation incentives than their sell-side...

This paper reveals that in addition to fundamental factors, the 52-week high price and recent investor sentiment play an important role in analysts' target price formation. Analysts' forecasts of short-term earnings and long-term earnings growth are shown to be important explanatory variables...

We examine whether, and to what extent, investors focus on salient and easy-to-process features in responding to analyst forecasts. We focus on rounding as arguably the most salient forecast feature. We find that while rounding is only marginally associated with forecast accuracy, investors...

We examine the impact of global IFRS adoption on cross-border equity investments by individual investors. Our proxy for cross-border equity investments is trading volume in the Open Market at Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The Open Market is a segment designed for German individual investors to trade...

Using aggregate data from national accounts, we study whether strengthening and harmonizing securities regulation across the European Union increases household equity ownership. We find a significant increase in the proportion of liquid assets invested in equity, both when a household's own...

We survey the textual sentiment literature, comparing and contrasting the various information sources, content analysis methods, and empirical models that have been used to date. We summarize the important and influential findings about how textual sentiment impacts on individual, firm-level and...