'Consistent' Earnings Surprises
52 Pages Posted: 15 Mar 2010 Last revised: 9 Sep 2014
There are 2 versions of this paper
'Consistent' Earnings Surprises
'Consistent' Earnings Surprises
Date Written: August 2014
Abstract
We hypothesize that analysts with a bullish stock recommendation have an interest in not being subsequently contradicted by negative firm-specific news. As a result, these analysts report downward-biased earnings forecasts so that the company is less likely to experience a negative earnings surprise. Analogously, analysts with a bearish recommendation report upward biased earnings forecasts so that the firm is less likely to experience a strong positive earnings surprise. Consistent with this notion, we find that stock recommendations significantly and positively predict subsequent earnings surprises, as well as narrow beats versus narrow misses. Stock recommendations also predict earnings-announcement-day returns. A long-short portfolio that exploits this predictability earns abnormal returns of 125 basis points per month.
Keywords: Stock recommendations, Biased earnings forecasts, Career concerns
JEL Classification: G14, G18, G20
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Can Investors Profit from the Prophets? Consensus Analyst Recommendations and Stock Returns
By Brad M. Barber, Reuven Lehavy, ...
-
Security Analysts' Career Concerns and Herding of Earnings Forecasts
By Jeffrey D. Kubik, Amit Solomon, ...
-
By Patricia Dechow, Amy P. Hutton, ...
-
Analyzing the Analysts: When Do Recommendations Add Value?
By Narasimhan Jegadeesh, Joonghyuk Kim, ...
-
An Empirical Analysis of Analysts' Target Prices: Short Term Informativeness and Long Term Dynamics
By Alon Brav and Reuven Lehavy
-
How Do Analysts Use Their Earnings Forecasts in Generating Stock Recommendations?