After a string of years in which security analysts' top stock picks significantly outperformed their pans, the year 2000 was a disaster. During that year the stocks least favorably recommended by analysts earned an annualized market-adjusted return of 48.66 percent while the stocks most highly...

This paper tests for the existence of performance persistence in brokerage house stock recommendations. For the period 1987-1996 we show that purchasing the current-year buy recommendations of the brokerage houses with the best prior performance earned an annualized geometric mean raw return of...

In this paper we document that an investment strategy based on the consensus (average) analyst recommendations of security analysts earns positive returns. For the period 1986-1996, a portfolio of stocks most highly recommended by analysts earned an annualized geometric mean return of 18.8...

We analyze the relation between investor recognition and stock returns. Consistent with Merton's (1987) theoretical analysis, we show that (i) contemporaneous stock returns are positively related to changes in investor recognition, (ii) future stock returns are negatively related to changes in...

From January 1996 through June 2003, the average daily abnormal return to independent research firm buy recommendations exceeds that of investment bank buy recommendations by 3.1 basis points (almost 8 percentage points annualized). Investment bank buy recommendation underperformance is more...

This paper analyzes the distribution of stock ratings at investment banks and brokerage firms and examines whether these distributions can predict the profitability of analysts' recommendations. We document that the percentage of buys decreased steadily starting in mid-2000, likely due, at least...

After a string of years in which security analysts' top stock picks significantly outperformed their pans, the years 2000 and 2001 were disasters. During those two years, the stocks least favored by analysts earned an average annualized market-adjusted return of 13.44 percent whereas the stocks...

This study examines the reliability of the financial statements of 72 firms that adopted fresh start reporting upon their emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The study focuses on the reliability of the fair value estimate of equity recorded upon the adoption of fresh start...

This study examines the association between firms? values and accounting numbers for 72 firms that adopted fresh start reporting (FSR) upon their emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It focuses on the effects of a misstatement in the reporting choice of the initial fresh start value of equity...

We examine the effect of managerial expectations on asymmetric cost behavior in the context of resource adjustment costs and unused resource constraints. Our results show that the incremental impact of managerial expectations on cost asymmetry is the strongest when adjustment costs and unused...