Analyst Earnings Forecast Optimism during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from China

Analysts are important participants in the capital market, but there are relatively few studies on the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on analysts’ behaviors. This article examines the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the analysts’ earnings forecast optimism by using a sample of visits to Chinese listed firms during 2019–2020. We find that the analysts’ earnings forecasts become less optimistic and show pessimism after the outbreak of COVID-19. This result is consistent with past research findings that major natural disasters lead to analysts’ forecasts pessimism. However, we also find that the earnings forecasts issued by analysts with on-site visits are more optimistic after the COVID-19 outbreak. The increase in optimism is associated with accounting information transparency, the proportion of tangible assets, and the revenue geographical concentration of the visited companies. Further analysis shows that higher optimism in visiting analysts’ earnings forecasts after the COVID-19 outbreak leads to a positive market response, suggesting that optimism in visiting analysts’ forecasts misleads the market’s resource allocation. We also find that the higher level of optimism in visiting analysts’ earnings forecasts disappeared after the COVID-19 outbreak was well controlled. Overall, our study enriches the study of the impact of COVID-19 on capital markets from the perspective of analysts’ forecast optimism. Investors in other countries should also be aware of the impact of similar phenomena.