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Book part
Publication date: 30 September 2019

Walied Keshk

Although prior research documents that analysts sometimes herd their forecasts, very few studies investigate how investors’ judgments are influenced by their perceptions of the…

Abstract

Although prior research documents that analysts sometimes herd their forecasts, very few studies investigate how investors’ judgments are influenced by their perceptions of the likelihood of analyst herding. I conduct an experimental study to investigate the conditions under which investors’ assessments of uncertainty about future earnings are influenced by their perceptions of the likelihood of analyst herding. As expected, and consistent with motivated reasoning, the results show that the temporal order of analyst forecasts influences investors’ estimates of the likelihood of analyst herding and investors’ uncertainty judgments when analyst forecasts are preference-inconsistent but not when analyst forecasts are preference-consistent. This study provides a potential explanation for the mixed findings of prior research in regard to investors’ reactions to the likelihood of analyst herding. In addition, this study extends research on investors’ credulity by providing evidence that motivated reasoning and skepticism may serve as a mechanism that contributes to that credulity.

Article
Publication date: 21 September 2009

Susan M. Young

Prior literature has found that as uncertainty in a firms information environment increases, optimism increases in equity analysts’ earnings forecasts. The studies suggest an…

Abstract

Prior literature has found that as uncertainty in a firms information environment increases, optimism increases in equity analysts’ earnings forecasts. The studies suggest an economic incentive explanation, commonly called the management‐relations hypothesis. However, there is conflicting evidence that managers would prefer pessimistic forecasts and encourage analysts to “walk‐down” their forecasts to prevent negative earnings surprises. To test these contradictory findings, this study uses an experimental setting to remove economic incentives from the analyst’s decision process and isolate the cause of observed bias in analysts’ reports. The results of the experiment show that an increase in the perceived uncertainty of the forecasting task results in significantly lower relative optimism in analysts’ earnings forecasts. This finding is consistent with a negativity hypothesis and the managementrelations hypothesis extolled in the empirical research. The findings also show that relative forecast optimism bias is positively related to the level of analysts’ buy/sell recommendations consistent with more recent findings that suggest that analysts use motivated reasoning (the tendency to process information in a manner that supports one’s goal) in their judgments of forecasted earnings and recommendations. Together, these results suggest that analysts consider and use financial information differently depending on their decision goal.

Details

Review of Behavioural Finance, vol. 1 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1940-5979

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Article
Publication date: 23 February 2010

Sherry Fang Li

Previous research has provided mixed evidence on the relative importance of three earnings thresholds that managers seek to achieve: avoiding losses, avoiding earnings declines…

Abstract

Purpose

Previous research has provided mixed evidence on the relative importance of three earnings thresholds that managers seek to achieve: avoiding losses, avoiding earnings declines and avoiding negative earnings surprises. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether firm‐specific factors influence management's preferences for an earnings threshold.

Design/methodology/approach

Logit models are estimated to explore the relationships between firm‐characteristics and management's perceptions of the relative importance of each threshold.

Findings

This paper finds that: large firms, firms with high growth prospects and firms with high trading volume are more concerned with avoiding negative earnings surprises, while small firms, firms with low growth prospects and firms with low trading volume are more prone to avoid earnings declines and losses; for firms with high analyst forecast accuracy (relative to a random walk model forecast), avoiding negative earnings surprises is more important than avoiding earnings declines and losses; and firms with low analyst forecast dispersion focus more on avoiding negative earnings surprises and losses, while firms with high analyst forecast dispersion focus more on avoiding earnings declines. Overall, this paper shows that firm characteristics do affect management's perceptions of the relative importance of each threshold.

Originality/value

This study recognizes the cross‐sectional differences in the earnings threshold hierarchy. The results suggest that regulators and practitioners should focus on different thresholds for different types of firms when investigating the mechanisms used to achieve the thresholds.

Details

Review of Accounting and Finance, vol. 9 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1475-7702

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Article
Publication date: 20 January 2021

Athanasios Fassas, Stephanos Papadamou and Dimitrios Kenourgios

This study examines the forecasting performance of the professional analysts participating in the Blue Chip Economic Indicators Survey using an alternative methodological research…

Abstract

Purpose

This study examines the forecasting performance of the professional analysts participating in the Blue Chip Economic Indicators Survey using an alternative methodological research design.

Design/methodology/approach

This work employs two methodologies, namely a panel specification, with the cross-section being the forecast horizon (from 1-month to 18-months ahead forecasts) and the time period being the time that the forecast was made and a quantile regression technique, which evaluates the hidden nonmonotonic relations between the forecasts and the target variables being forecasted.

Findings

The empirical findings of this study show that survey-based forecasts of certain key macroeconomic variables are generally biased but still efficient predictors of target variables. In particular, we find that survey participants are more efficient in predicting long-term interest rates in the long-run and short-term interest rates in the short run, while the predictability of medium-term interest rates is the least accurate. Finally, our empirical analysis suggests that currency fluctuations are very hard to predict in the short run, while we show that survey-based forecasts are among the most accurate predictors of GDP deflator and growth.

Practical implications

Evaluating the accuracy of economic forecasts is critical since market participants and policymakers utilize such data (as one of several inputs) for making investment, financial and policy decisions. Therefore, the quality of a decision depends, in part, on the quality of the forecast. Our empirical results should have immediate implications for asset pricing models that use interest rates and inflation forecasts as variables.

Originality/value

The present study marks a methodological departure from existing empirical attempts as it proposes a simpler yet powerful approach in order to investigate the efficiency of professional forecasts. The employed empirical specifications enable market participants to investigate the information content of forecasts over different forecast horizons and the temporal evolution of forecast quality.

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 49 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

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Article
Publication date: 22 April 2008

Michaël Dewally

Whisper numbers have captured the attention of both the investment community and the financial media. They have heightened the drama of companies’ earnings releases and have been…

Abstract

Whisper numbers have captured the attention of both the investment community and the financial media. They have heightened the drama of companies’ earnings releases and have been played up as explanations for stock prices’ reactions to actual earnings announcement. I examine the accuracy, the predictive performance and the informational value of these whispers. Gathering my sample from an on‐line source of whisper information, I compare the whispers performance to that of traditional investment analyst forecasts. I find that whispers, while unbiased, are not more accurate than the analysts’ consensus. There is mixed evidence that the market partially reflects the whispers information into price. In fact, I find that a strategy of shorting stocks for which whispers forecasts predict that stocks will outperform is profitable. In summary, whispers are not as accurate as generally portrayed. They are only a fair predictor of stock prices’ movement and do not represent the market’s true earnings expectations.

Details

American Journal of Business, vol. 23 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1935-5181

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Article
Publication date: 5 August 2019

Guojin Gong, Yue Li and Ling Zhou

It has been widely documented that investors and analysts underreact to information in past earnings changes, a fundamental performance indicator. The purpose of this paper is to…

Abstract

Purpose

It has been widely documented that investors and analysts underreact to information in past earnings changes, a fundamental performance indicator. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether managers’ voluntary disclosure efficiently incorporates information in past earnings changes, whether analysts recognize and fully anticipate the potential inefficiency in management forecasts and whether managers’ potential forecasting inefficiency entirely results from intentional disclosure strategies or at least partly reflects managers’ unintentional information processing biases.

Design/methodology/approach

Archival data were used to empirically test the relation between management earnings forecast errors and past earnings changes.

Findings

Results show that managers underreact to past earnings changes when projecting future earnings and analysts recognize, but fail to fully anticipate, the predictable bias associated with past earnings changes in management forecasts. Moreover, analysts appear to underreact more to past earnings changes when management forecasts exhibit greater underestimation of earnings change persistence. Further analyses suggest that the underestimation of earnings change persistence is at least partly attributable to managers’ unintentional information processing bias.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the voluntary disclosure literature by demonstrating the limitation in the informational value of management forecasts. The findings indicate that the effectiveness of voluntary disclosure in mitigating market mispricing is inherently limited by the inefficiency in management forecasts. This study can help market participants to better use management forecasts to form more accurate earnings expectations. Moreover, our evidence suggests a managerial information processing bias with respect to past earnings changes, which may affect managers' operational, investment or financing decisions.

Details

International Journal of Accounting & Information Management, vol. 27 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1834-7649

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Article
Publication date: 17 July 2013

Jun Han

Researchers have long been interested in understanding why and how corporate managers issue earnings guidance and the effect of such guidance on stakeholders’ (investors’ and…

Abstract

Researchers have long been interested in understanding why and how corporate managers issue earnings guidance and the effect of such guidance on stakeholders’ (investors’ and managers’) behavior. Several recent studies have employed the experimental approach to address these issues. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and synthesize the literature on experimental studies of management earnings guidance. Consistent with the literature, I organize the synthesis to reflect (a) whether, why and how management issues guidance; (b) investors’ reactions to guidance; (c) the effect of guidance on management behavior. In addition, I provide institutional information (e.g., nature and timing of guidance) about guidance as well as provide several directions for future research. The synthesis reveals that the experimental studies have made a unique contribution to this literature by (i) providing evidence on process variables that underlie some empirical associations, (ii) directly measuring managers’ personal attributes and, (iii) closing the causality gap in the guidance literature.

Details

Journal of Accounting Literature, vol. 31 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0737-4607

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Article
Publication date: 1 May 1983

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of

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Abstract

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Details

Management Decision, vol. 21 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0025-1747

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Article
Publication date: 25 November 2013

Spyros Spyrou

– The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of theory and empirical evidence on herding behavior in financial markets.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of theory and empirical evidence on herding behavior in financial markets.

Design/methodology/approach

Review and discussion of the literature.

Findings

More than two decades of empirical and theoretical research have provided a significant insight on investor herding behavior.

Research limitations/implications

The discussion indicates that there are still open issues and areas with inconclusive evidence, e.g. the author knows relatively little for markets other than equity markets.

Practical implications

The paper may need empirical methodologies to evaluate herding that address current limitations.

Originality/value

The paper reviews recent empirical evidence and identifies open issues for future research.

Details

Review of Behavioral Finance, vol. 5 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1940-5979

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 25 August 2022

Dipankar Ghosh and Lori Olsen

Financial analysts' forecasts serve as a proxy for market earnings expectations, and research provides mixed evidence of the relation between financial analysts' expertise and…

Abstract

Financial analysts' forecasts serve as a proxy for market earnings expectations, and research provides mixed evidence of the relation between financial analysts' expertise and forecast accuracy. The judgment and decision-making (J/DM) literature suggests that those with more expertise will not perform better when tasks exhibit either extremely high or extremely low complexity. Expertise is expected to contribute to superior performance for tasks between these two extremes. Using archival data, this research examines the effect of analysts' expertise on forecasting performance by taking into consideration the forecasting task's complexity. Results indicate that expertise is not an explanatory factor for forecast accuracy when the forecasting task's complexity is extremely high or low. However, when task complexity falls between these two extremes, expertise is a significant explanatory variable of forecast accuracy. Both results are consistent with our expectations.

Details

Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-802-2

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