We examine the determinants and the informativeness of financial analysts' risk ratings using a large sample of research reports issued by Salomon Smith Barney, now Citigroup. We find that the cross-sectional variation in risk ratings is largely explained by variables commonly viewed as risk...

Prior research on financial analysts' consensus earnings forecast errors has tended to explore either incentives-based or inefficient information use-based explanations for the properties of the analysts' forecast errors. This has limited our understanding of financial analysts' expectation...

We examine whether Regulation FD has reduced the informativeness of analysts' information outputs. For a sample of financial analysts' earnings forecasts and recommendations released between October 23, 1999 and October 23, 2001, we show that in the post-Regulation period the absolute price...

We explore sell-side debt analysts' contributions to the efficiency of securities markets. We document that debt returns lag equity returns less when debt research coverage exists, consistent with debt analysts facilitating the process by which available information is impounded in debt prices....

We study the determinants and market impact of sell-side debt research. Analyzing a sample of 5,920 debt reports published by fifteen brokerage firms from 1999 to 2004, we document that companies with a higher probability of financial distress, lower market-to-book ratio, larger debt, and higher...

The traditional view of equity analysts is that they are a source of new information about future cash flows. We broaden this view by demonstrating that equity analysts are also a substantive source of new information about priced risk. In particular, we document that when announced changes in...

We examine whether analysts tip investors during investor conferences. We find that conference-day abnormal returns of a presenting company are about 0.6% higher when the conference is hosted by an analyst who will initiate coverage with a Buy recommendation than when the conference is hosted by...

We investigate whether information possessed by rank-and-file employees is incorporated in top managers' expectations and decisions. Using employees' predictions of their company's business outlook from Glassdoor.com to measure the employees' information set, and using management earnings...