Using unique data on brokerage-firm trading, I examine whether analysts' earnings forecasts and stock recommendations affect their brokerage firms' share of trading in the forecast stocks. I find that individual analyst's forecasts that differ from the consensus forecast generate significant...

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...

We show that abnormal returns to analysts' recommendations stem from both the ratings levels assigned as well as the changes in those ratings. Conditional on the ratings change, buy and strong buy recommendations have greater returns than do holds, sells, and strong sells. Conditional on the...

We examine the effect of MiFID II, which mandated the unbundling and separate pricing of analyst research in Europe beginning in 2018. We find that the requirements of MiFID II were associated with a reduction in analyst following for European firms relative to US firms, with decreases in...

We use exogenous decreases in analyst coverage to examine how firm-specific analyst coverage affects media coverage. The loss of analyst information, on which journalists rely, raises the costs of developing a news article. Simultaneously, the loss reduces competition in the market for public...

Regulators' interest in analyst reports stems from the belief that small investors are unaware of the conflicts sell-side analysts face and may, as a consequence, be misled into making suboptimal investment decisions. We examine who trades on security analyst stock recommendations by extending...

The paper presents an empirical study on the content of reports on Italian stocks. We collected 4,603 reports regarding 29 blue chips listed in Italian stock market and released during years 2000-2003 by important brokers and investment firms. We carefully examined each report to find out the...

Many firms define their fiscal quarters as 13-week periods so that each fiscal year contains 52 weeks, which leaves out one or two day(s) a year. To compensate, one extra week is added every fifth or sixth year and, consequently, one quarter therein comprises 14 weeks. We find evidence of...

We find that analysts who issue more accurate earnings forecasts also issue more profitable stock recommendations. The average factor-adjusted return associated with the recommendations of analysts in the highest accuracy quintile exceeds the corresponding return for analysts in the lowest...

I examine the role of analysts in providing heterogeneous interpretations of public disclosures, specifically earnings announcements. Consistent with the predictions of Indjejikian's (1991) model, I document that there are relatively more heterogeneous interpretations in the forecast revisions...