We find that bidder-target stock return correlations positively predict merger synergies, and the predictive power is enhanced when we focus more on idiosyncratic correlations. A measure of idiosyncratic correlation (IDC) between bidder and target firms that controls for all other stocks,...

We show that understanding the role of analysts' forecast bias is central to discovering the behavior that causes some stocks to have high analyst forecast dispersion. This finding is important because stocks with high analyst forecast dispersion contribute significantly to many important...

We document a strong positive initial market reaction to merger announcements from bidders with either large earnings growth or significant earnings decline, relative to those with neutral earnings change, reflecting a U-shaped pattern between bidders’ earnings growth and announcement returns....

A great number of academic papers evaluate the potential for incentive-driven bias in sell-side analysts' earnings forecasts. Yet bias does not necessarily invalidate a forecast, nor does it impinge on its relative quality. We find that analysts' forecasts are optimistic relative to recently...