Sell-side fundamental analyst reports are highly valued in the financial industry and include three main quantitative components: earnings forecasts, target prices, and buy/sell recommendations. An important question for investment managers is then, how accurate are the forecasts of fundamental...

Over the past 12 years, financial analysts across the world have been optimistically wrong with their 12-month earnings forecasts by 25.3%. This study may be the first of its kind to assess analyst earnings forecast accuracy at all listed companies across the globe, covering 70 countries. A...

Using a sample from 22 countries, I investigate the relations between the accuracy of analysts' earnings forecasts and the level of annual report disclosure; and between forecast accuracy and the degree of enforcement of accounting standards. I document that firm-level disclosures are positively...

Using an international sample, I investigate whether the extent of firms' disclosure of their accounting policies in the annual report is associated with properties of analysts' earnings forecasts. Controlling for firm- and country-level variables, I find that the level of accounting policy...

We examine the relative accuracy of management and analyst forecasts of annual EPS. We predict and find that analysts' information advantage resides at the macroeconomic level. They provide more accurate earnings forecasts than management when a firm's fortunes move in concert with macroeconomic...

Several recent empirical papers assert that the decision to disclose an earnings forecast shortly before the actual earnings announcement reveals only short-term information and is therefore unlikely to entail proprietary costs. Using a simple dynamic model of voluntary disclosure, we show that...

We examine whether management earnings forecast errors exhibit serial correlation and how analysts understand the serial correlation property of management forecast errors. Management forecast errors should not exhibit serial correlation if managers efficiently process information in prior...

Studying the determinants of management forecast precision is important because a better understanding of the factors affecting management’s choice of forecast precision can provide investors and other users with cues about the characteristics of the information contained in the forecasts. In...

Under fairly general assumptions, expected stock returns are a linear combination of two accounting fundamentals ― book to market and ROE. Empirical estimates based on this relation predict the cross section of out-of-sample returns in 26 of 29 international equity markets, with a highly...