Using a novel database, we show that the stock-price impact of analyst trade ideas is at least as large as the impact of stock recommendation, target price, and earnings forecast changes, and that investors following trade ideas can earn significant abnormal returns. Trade ideas triggered by...

This paper analyzes how the existence of sector funds (specialists) within a mutual fund family affects the performance and investment behavior of affiliated diversified equity funds (generalists). First of all, I show that specialists have stock picking skills. Second, information flows from...

Quantitative research analysts (Quants) produce in-depth quantitative and econometric modeling of market anomalies to assist sell-side analysts and institutional clients with stock selection strategies. Quants are associated with more efficient analyst forecasting behavior on anomaly predictors...

The literature examining analyst activity assumes that access to management is valued by analysts and their employers. We propose a readily observable measure of access: how often an analyst is invited to be among the first to ask questions in the Q&A session of an earnings conference call....

This paper investigates whether bond fund managers with credit rating experience outperform their peers. We document that bond fund managers who previously worked in credit rat- ing agencies on average create higher risk-adjusted returns than their peers by 11-16 bps per month, with better...

We extend the literature by investigating whether analysts cater their coverage to investor information demand. Results suggest that analysts' coverage is contemporaneously positively associated with investor information demand, and negatively associated with the previous time periods...

Sell-side research is a common source of corporate fundamental information, but most of the research is exclusively distributed to paying clients. This paper investigates whether the soft information in analyst reports exacerbates the information asymmetry among investors. I document that the...

In this paper, we examine whether sell-side financial analysts show a bias when translating their soft information into a hard format. Sell-side analysts produce both soft research output, in the form of a textual report, and hard research output, including earnings forecasts, target prices, and...

We examine professional connections among executives and analysts formed through overlapping historical employment. Analysts with professional connections to coverage firms have more accurate earnings forecasts, and issue more informative buy and sell recommendations. These analysts are more...

This paper investigates the effect of stable business relationships between brokerage firms and mutual funds on analyst recommendations. Although the amount of commission fees a brokerage firm receives is the primary factor affecting recommendation aggressiveness of the brokerage firm's...