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...

This study compares the earnings forecasts of analysts employed by independent research firms to those of analysts employed by investment banks along the dimensions of accuracy and optimism. We discuss the conflicts of interest faced by both groups and suggest that, despite incentives stemming...

This paper examines whether valuation estimates based on analysts' earnings forecasts are consistent with their stock recommendations. Because earnings forecasts are linked to value and recommendations reflect analysts' opinions of value relative to current price, earnings forecasts and stock...

In this paper, we investigate determinants of the market impact of stock recommendations issued by sell-side financial analysts. We propose a simple framework for understanding the process that financial analysts use to issue stock recommendations. The framework yields three testable...

Using both a linear regression method and a probability-based method, we find that on average analysts place larger than efficient weights on (i.e., they over-weight) their private information when they forecast corporate earnings. We also find that analysts over-weight more when issuing...

This paper provides empirical evidence on factors affecting analysts' weighting of private and public information when they forecast firm earnings. We examine the relevance of competing explanations for the deviations of analysts' actual weighting from their efficient weighting (i.e., the...

Li (2011) proposes a quarterly earnings prediction model for loss generating firms, shows that it produces better specified future earnings estimates relative to naïve quarterly forecast models, and that it can be used to form a trading strategy that produces economically significant annual...

We examine the extent to which analysts who participate in earnings conference calls by asking questions possess superior private information relative to analysts who do not ask questions. Using a large sample of earnings conference call transcripts over the period 2002 to 2005, we find that...

This study examines whether analysts' decisions to issue cash flows forecasts depend endogenously on their decision to use these forecasts to set target prices. An endogenous switching regression model, with analyst report regimes of disclosure and non-disclosure of cash flow forecasts, shows...