Analysts often update their recommendations following corporate news. Questions have been raised regarding analysts' ability to generate new information beyond recent corporate events. Employing a comprehensive database on corporate news we show that only a small minority of 27.9% of all...

This article shows that aggregate analyst recommendations predict future aggregate excess returns at MSA and state level (i.e. local level). The results hold even after controlling for macroeconomic variables, industry and market returns, as well as investor sentiment. We also show that the...

This paper shows that analyst recommendations aggregated at the country level predict international stock market returns. A trading strategy based on past country-level recommendations yields an abnormal return of around 0.9 percent per month. Aggregate analyst recommendations also predict...

In this research I empirically study the effects of information acquisition by investors or traders on analysts' forecast bias. Based on the theoretical literature on sell-side analysts, I argue that forecast bias is correlated to investors' information gathering, in two opposite directions. On...

Quantitative research analysts (Quants) produce in-depth quantitative and econometric modeling of market anomalies to assist sell-side analysts and institutional clients with stock selection strategies. Quants are associated with more efficient analyst forecasting behavior on anomaly predictors...

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...

We examine the information transmission role of stock recommendation revisions by sell-side security analysts. Revisions are associated with economically insignificant mean price reactions and often piggyback on recent news, events, long-term momentum, and short-run contrarian return predictors,...

We examine whether the informativeness of sell-side analyst reports depends on the strength of the regulatory environment of a country and the regulatory background of the institutional investors of a company. Our analyses are based on more than 600,000 analyst reports from 2005 through 2010...

We find that forecast revisions by analysts with more favorable surnames elicit stronger market reactions. The effect is stronger among firms with lower institutional ownership and for analysts with non-American first names. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and France and Germany's...

This study examines the responses of investor sentiment and stock market returns to announcements of changes in analyst recommendation as well as the effect of these announcements on the relationship between sentiment and stock returns. Investor sentiment is more sensitive to upgrade...