Companies' earnings conference calls are perceived to be venues for sell-side equity analysts to ask management questions. In this study, we examine another important conference call participant — the buy-side analyst — that has been underexplored in the literature due to data limitations....

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...