This paper explores the ability of financial analysts to gauge the risk taken by banks and investigates the impact of the recent financial crisis. Using a sample of 36,343 analyst forecasts issued for 411 European banks over 2003-2009 we find that analyst forecasts are influenced by risk, the...

We use analyst earnings forecasts for banks to extract cost of capital measures. We find that the cost of equity and debt capital are decreasing in the Tier 1 ratio, whereas the total cost of capital is uncorrelated with the Tier 1 ratio. These findings suggest that investors adjust their...