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The investment value of the frequency of analyst recommendation changes for the ordinary investor

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  • Hobbs, Jeffrey
  • Kovacs, Tunde
  • Sharma, Vivek

Abstract

We find that analysts who frequently revise their stock recommendations outperform those who do not. This result holds for portfolios formed on the basis of favorable changes in recommendations as well as unfavorable changes. The frequency of revision captures information incremental to factors known to identify superior recommendations. Although much of the frequently revising analysts' advantage follows events proxied by abnormally high returns or trading volume, it does not appear to derive from more public events such as earnings announcements. Further, these analysts outperform their counterparts even over the short-run, suggesting that this is not simply a “quantity over quality” phenomenon. In summary, our results imply that the superior profitability of frequently revising analysts emanates at least partly from their ability to generate private information using their superior skill. Overall, the ordinary investor is better off following the advice of analysts who revise their recommendations more frequently.

Suggested Citation

  • Hobbs, Jeffrey & Kovacs, Tunde & Sharma, Vivek, 2012. "The investment value of the frequency of analyst recommendation changes for the ordinary investor," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 94-108.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:empfin:v:19:y:2012:i:1:p:94-108
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jempfin.2011.09.006
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    Cited by:

    1. Chung, Sung Gon & Kulchania, Manoj & Teo, Melvyn, 2021. "Hedge funds and their prime broker analysts," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 141-158.
    2. Jeffrey Hobbs & Vivek Singh, 2015. "A comparison of buy‐side and sell‐side analysts," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(1), pages 42-51, January.
    3. Philipp Stephan & Rüdiger Nitzsch, 2013. "Do individual investors’ stock recommendations in online communities contain investment value?," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 27(2), pages 149-186, June.
    4. repec:hal:journl:dumas-00934606 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Jeffrey Hobbs & Vivek Singh & Madhumita Chakraborty, 2021. "Institutional underperformance: Should managers listen to the sell-side before trading?," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 389-410, July.
    6. Hobbs, Jeffrey & Singh, Vivek, 2015. "A comparison of buy-side and sell-side analysts," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 42-51.
    7. Chen Su & Hanxiong Zhang & Kenbata Bangassa & Nathan Lael Joseph, 2019. "On the investment value of sell-side analyst recommendation revisions in the UK," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 257-293, July.
    8. Jiang, Shuai & Guo, Yanhong & Zhou, Wenjun & Li, Xianneng, 2023. "Identifying predictors of analyst rating quality: An ensemble feature selection approach," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 1853-1873.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Analyst recommendation's profitability; Frequency of recommendation changes; Market efficiency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

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