This study presents evidence suggesting that investors do not fully unravel predictable pessimism in sell-side analysts' earnings forecasts. We show that measures of prior consensus and individual analyst forecast pessimism are predictive of both the sign of firms' earnings surprises and the...

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...

This paper examines the role of financial statement comparability in shaping trading volume prior to earnings announcements. We find that the degree of delayed trading volume prior to earnings announcements is less pronounced for firms with more comparable financial statements. In addition, the...

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...

Despite the increased frequency of analyst forecasts during earnings announcements, empirical evidence on the interaction between the information in the earnings announcement and these forecasts is limited. We examine the implications of reinforcing and contradicting analyst forecast revisions...

This research aims to examine empirically the overreliance on representativeness heuristic and anchoring-adjustment influences experienced by investors in forecasting future earnings. This research was a laboratory experiment with a design of 2x2 full factorial between subject. The results...

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 examine whether exogenous and extremely negative events such as terrorist attacks and mass shootings influence the sentiment and forecasts of sell-side equity analysts. We find that analysts who are local to these attacks issue forecasts that are relatively more pessimistic than the consensus...

This study presents direct evidence on the question whether investors recognize the widely documented biases in securities analysts' earnings forecasts. The internal rate of return implied by current stock price and consensus earnings forecasts is found to be correlated with indicators of bias...

Recent research finds that investors, broadly defined, react to the linguistic tone of quarterly earnings conference calls; there is a positive relation between firms' stock returns and call tone (a measure of “sentiment” related word tabulations). However, this type of soft information can...