In this paper, we examine whether sell-side financial analysts show a bias when translating their soft information into a hard format. Sell-side analysts produce both soft research output, in the form of a textual report, and hard research output, including earnings forecasts, target prices, and...

We examine whether financial analysts—sophisticated market participants—are subject to limited attention. We find that when analysts have another firm in their coverage portfolio announcing earnings on the same day as the sample firm (a “concurrent announcement”), they are less likely to...

Analysts cover portfolios of firms. Firms in these analyst portfolios are thus in principle subject to common (integrated) production of information. Nonetheless, this paper documents significant stock return and forecast revision predictability across firms with common analyst coverage. Prices...

This study investigates whether there are economic benefits for investors in analyzing differences in analyst quality. Although high-quality analysts’ average forecast is more accurate than the consensus forecast in firms with a large analyst following, the benefits of using high-quality...

Consensus analyst target prices are widely available online at no cost to investors. In this paper we consider whether these consensus target prices are informative for predicting future returns. We find that when considered in isolation, consensus target prices are not generally informative...

We extend the literature by investigating whether analysts cater their coverage to investor information demand. Results suggest that analysts' coverage is contemporaneously positively associated with investor information demand, and negatively associated with the previous time periods...

Sell-side research is a common source of corporate fundamental information, but most of the research is exclusively distributed to paying clients. This paper investigates whether the soft information in analyst reports exacerbates the information asymmetry among investors. I document that the...

Despite broad interest in analysts' activities, our understanding of sell-side analysts as a collective group is limited. This paper examines changes in the scope of the sell-side analyst industry and whether these changes impact information dissemination. Changes in the number of analysts...

Following the Global Settlement, analysts extensively use a top pick designation to highlight their highest conviction best ideas. Such a designation enables analysts to provide greater granularity of information, but it can potentially be influenced by conflicts of interest. Examining a...

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...