We document that analysts cater to short-term investors by issuing optimistic target prices. Catering dominates among analysts at brokers without an investment banking arm as they face lower reputational cost. The market does not see through the analyst catering activity and their forecasts lead...

We first examine whether analysts with certain characteristics that prior research has identified are related to superior forecasting ability systematically time their forecast revisions later in the fiscal quarter. We then examine whether this superior ability persists after controlling for...

We first examine whether analysts with certain characteristics that prior research has identified are related to superior forecasting ability systematically time their forecast revisions later in the fiscal quarter. We then examine whether this superior ability persists after controlling for...

Our study delves into analysts' motivation to issue concurrent cash flow forecasts in addition to earnings forecasts to achieve the analysts' specific strategic objectives. To investigate this motivation, we use economics based signaling theory and psychology based support theory to develop our...

This paper studies the effect of competition on analysts' forecast informativeness. I show that the impact of competition on forecast informativeness is ambiguous in general, and identify the necessary and sufficient conditions under which more intense competition can make forecasts less...

We put forward a model in which analysts are uncertain about a firm's earnings process. Faced with the possibility of using a misspecified model, analysts issue forecasts that are robust to model misspecification. We estimate that this mechanism explains approximately 60% of the autocorrelation...

In this paper we document that the earnings forecasts of security analysts who share a first name with the CEO of a covered firm (referred to as ‘matched' analysts) are more accurate, on average, than those of analysts who do not share a first name (referred to as ‘unmatched' analysts). This...

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...

Changing economic conditions over the past two decades have created incentives for sell-side analysts to both provide their institutional clients tiered services and to streamline their written research process. One manifestation of these changes is an increased likelihood of analysts' issuing...