The Walk-Down to Beatable Forecasts: International Evidence

Abstract

We use the framework developed in Richardson et al. (2004) to identify country, firm and analyst characteristics that we expect to be associated with the prevalence of the analyst walk-down forecast pattern. Based on a large sample of 50,649 analysts covering 33,645 firms from 46 countries during 1992-2014, we find that the walk-down pattern positively correlates with country characteristics related to insider trading restrictions and equity sales. It also positively relates to the stock market reward for beating analyst forecasts, firm-level characteristics underlying management concerns with share prices after earnings announcements, and analysts’ incentives to cooperate with management. The effects of these factors on the walk-down pattern are more pronounced in countries with better media-coverage institutions. Overall, these findings suggest that capital market incentives affecting the communication between managers and analysts and the resulting analyst forecast bias involves various forces including a country’s institutional infrastructure, and firm and analyst characteristics.

Keywords: Analyst forecasts, Walk-down, Earnings guidance, Institutional infrastructure, Insider trading, Forecast bias

JEL Classification: G14, G15, G24