IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v151y2018i3d10.1007_s10551-016-3244-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Integrity of Financial Analysts: Evidence from Asymmetric Responses to Earnings Surprises

Author

Listed:
  • Rui Lu

    (Sun Yat-sen University)

  • Wenxuan Hou

    (University of Edinburgh Business School
    Shanghai University of Finance and Economics)

  • Henry Oppenheimer

    (University of Rhode Island)

  • Ting Zhang

    (University of Dayton)

Abstract

This paper investigates the integrity of financial analysts by examining their recommendation responses to large quarterly earnings surprises. Although there is no significant difference in recommendation changes between affiliated and unaffiliated analysts in response to positive earnings surprises, affiliated analysts are more reluctant than unaffiliated analysts to downgrade stock recommendations in response to negative earnings surprises. The evidence implies that conflicts of interest undermine the integrity of financial analysts. We further examine the effects of reputation concern and the Global Research Analyst Settlement as informal and formal mechanisms, on restoring analysts’ integrity. The results show that the positive bias in recommendations remains prevalent for affiliated analysts from reputable investment banks and for the postreform period. Finally, evidence from market reactions suggests that investors fail to notice that analysts’ integrity is compromised by conflicts of interest and are misled by affiliated analysts.

Suggested Citation

  • Rui Lu & Wenxuan Hou & Henry Oppenheimer & Ting Zhang, 2018. "The Integrity of Financial Analysts: Evidence from Asymmetric Responses to Earnings Surprises," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 761-783, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:151:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s10551-016-3244-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-016-3244-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-016-3244-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-016-3244-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:4:p:789-822 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Lin, Hsiou-wei & McNichols, Maureen F., 1998. "Underwriting relationships, analysts' earnings forecasts and investment recommendations," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 101-127, February.
    3. Womack, Kent L, 1996. "Do Brokerage Analysts' Recommendations Have Investment Value?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 137-167, March.
    4. Lily Hua Fang, 2005. "Investment Bank Reputation and the Price and Quality of Underwriting Services," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(6), pages 2729-2761, December.
    5. Michael Hertzel & Michael Lemmon & James S. Linck & Lynn Rees, 2002. "Long‐Run Performance following Private Placements of Equity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(6), pages 2595-2617, December.
    6. Carter, Richard B & Manaster, Steven, 1990. "Initial Public Offerings and Underwriter Reputation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1045-1067, September.
    7. Francis, Jennifer & Douglas Hanna, J. & Philbrick, Donna R., 1997. "Management communications with securities analysts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 363-394, December.
    8. Mikhail, MB & Walther, BR & Willis, RH, 1997. "Do security analysts improve their performance with experience?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35, pages 131-157.
    9. Alexander Dyck & Adair Morse & Luigi Zingales, 2010. "Who Blows the Whistle on Corporate Fraud?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(6), pages 2213-2253, December.
    10. John E. Core & Wayne R. Guay & Tjomme O. Rusticus, 2006. "Does Weak Governance Cause Weak Stock Returns? An Examination of Firm Operating Performance and Investors' Expectations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(2), pages 655-687, April.
    11. Ohad Kadan & Leonardo Madureira & Rong Wang & Tzachi Zach, 2009. "Conflicts of Interest and Stock Recommendations: The Effects of the Global Settlement and Related Regulations," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(10), pages 4189-4217, October.
    12. Kim, Moshe & Kristiansen, Eirik Gaard & Vale, Bent, 2005. "Endogenous product differentiation in credit markets: What do borrowers pay for?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 681-699, March.
    13. Chen, Tao & Harford, Jarrad & Lin, Chen, 2015. "Do analysts matter for governance? Evidence from natural experiments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 383-410.
    14. Welch, Ivo, 2000. "Herding among security analysts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 369-396, December.
    15. Clement, Michael B., 1999. "Analyst forecast accuracy: Do ability, resources, and portfolio complexity matter?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 285-303, July.
    16. Vincent Di Lorenzo, 2007. "Business Ethics: Law As A Determinant of Business Conduct," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 71(3), pages 275-299, March.
    17. Michaely, Roni & Womack, Kent L, 1999. "Conflict of Interest and the Credibility of Underwriter Analyst Recommendations," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(4), pages 653-686.
    18. Cowen, Amanda & Groysberg, Boris & Healy, Paul, 2006. "Which types of analyst firms are more optimistic?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1-2), pages 119-146, April.
    19. Brown, Ld & Rozeff, Ms, 1979. "Univariate Time-Series Models Of Quarterly Accounting Earnings Per Share - Proposed Model," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 179-189.
    20. Harrison Hong & Jeffrey D. Kubik, 2003. "Analyzing the Analysts: Career Concerns and Biased Earnings Forecasts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(1), pages 313-351, February.
    21. Francesco Franzoni & José M. Marín, 2006. "Pension Plan Funding and Stock Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(2), pages 921-956, April.
    22. Logue, Dennis E., 1973. "On the Pricing of Unseasoned Equity Issues: 1965–1969," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 91-103, January.
    23. Bernard, Victor L. & Thomas, Jacob K., 1990. "Evidence that stock prices do not fully reflect the implications of current earnings for future earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 305-340, December.
    24. Kolasinski, Adam C. & Kothari, S. P., 2008. "Investment Banking and Analyst Objectivity: Evidence from Analysts Affiliated with Mergers and Acquisitions Advisors," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(4), pages 817-842, December.
    25. Anup Agrawal & Mark A. Chen, 2008. "Do Analyst Conflicts Matter? Evidence from Stock Recommendations," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(3), pages 503-537, August.
    26. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    27. Mozes, Haim A., 2003. "Accuracy, usefulness and the evaluation of analysts' forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 417-434.
    28. Clarke, Jonathan & Ferris, Stephen P. & Jayaraman, Narayanan & Lee, Jinsoo, 2006. "Are Analyst Recommendations Biased? Evidence from Corporate Bankruptcies," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(1), pages 169-196, March.
    29. Ron Kasznik & Maureen F. McNichols, 2002. "Does Meeting Earnings Expectations Matter? Evidence from Analyst Forecast Revisions and Share Prices," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(3), pages 727-759, June.
    30. Richard R. Mendenhall, 2004. "Arbitrage Risk and Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(4), pages 875-894, October.
    31. Burgstahler, David & Dichev, Ilia, 1997. "Earnings management to avoid earnings decreases and losses," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 99-126, December.
    32. Patricia C. O'Brien & Maureen F. Mcnichols & Lin Hsiou‐Wei, 2005. "Analyst Impartiality and Investment Banking Relationships," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(4), pages 623-650, September.
    33. Kroszner, Randall S & Rajan, Raghuram G, 1994. "Is the Glass-Steagall Act Justified? A Study of the U.S. Experience with Universal Banking before 1933," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 810-832, September.
    34. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:1:p:285-311 is not listed on IDEAS
    35. Conrad, Jennifer & Cornell, Bradford & Landsman, Wayne R. & Rountree, Brian R., 2006. "How Do Analyst Recommendations Respond to Major News?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(1), pages 25-49, March.
    36. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    37. Jeffrey T. Doyle & Russell J. Lundholm & Mark T. Soliman, 2006. "The Extreme Future Stock Returns Following I/B/E/S Earnings Surprises," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(5), pages 849-887, December.
    38. Guido Palazzo & Lena Rethel, 2008. "Conflicts of Interest in Financial Intermediation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 81(1), pages 193-207, August.
    39. Yu, Fang (Frank), 2008. "Analyst coverage and earnings management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 245-271, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Yuan-Yuan & Zhang, Yue-Jun, 2022. "The impact of institutional analyst forecast divergence on crude oil market: Evidence from the mixed frequency models," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    2. Li, Yanqiong & He, Jie & Chan, Kam C., 2021. "Information transmission along supply chains: Stock price reaction of suppliers upon a customer's release of qualitative risk information," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 239(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ramnath, Sundaresh & Rock, Steve & Shane, Philip, 2008. "The financial analyst forecasting literature: A taxonomy with suggestions for further research," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 34-75.
    2. Cheolwoo Lee, 2013. "Analyst firm parent–subsidiary relationship and conflict of interest: evidence from IPO recommendations," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 53(3), pages 763-789, September.
    3. Thabang Mokoaleli‐Mokoteli & Richard J. Taffler & Vineet Agarwal, 2009. "Behavioural Bias and Conflicts of Interest in Analyst Stock Recommendations," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(3‐4), pages 384-418, April.
    4. Beyer, Anne & Cohen, Daniel A. & Lys, Thomas Z. & Walther, Beverly R., 2010. "The financial reporting environment: Review of the recent literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 296-343, December.
    5. Juyoun Ryoo & Cheolwoo Lee & Jin Q Jeon, 2020. "Sustainability of Analyst Recommendations in Multiple Lead Underwriter IPOs," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-36, March.
    6. Thabang Mokoaleli-Mokoteli & Richard J. Taffler & Vineet Agarwal, 2009. "Behavioural Bias and Conflicts of Interest in Analyst Stock Recommendations," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(3-4), pages 384-418.
    7. Minzhi Wu & Mark Wilson & Yi Wu, 2017. "Was the Global Settlement Effective in Mitigating Systematic Bias in Affiliated Analyst Recommendations?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 146(3), pages 485-503, December.
    8. Lim, Youngdeok & Kim, Hyungtae, 2019. "Market reaction to optimistic bias in the recommendations of chaebol-affiliated analysts," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 224-242.
    9. Anup Agrawal & Mark A. Chen, 2008. "Do Analyst Conflicts Matter? Evidence from Stock Recommendations," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(3), pages 503-537, August.
    10. Altınkılıç, Oya & Balashov, Vadim S. & Hansen, Robert S., 2019. "Investment bank monitoring and bonding of security analysts’ research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 98-119.
    11. Li, Fengfei & Lin, Chen & Lin, Tse-Chun, 2021. "Salient anchor and analyst recommendation downgrade," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    12. Daniel Bradley & Xi Liu & Christos Pantzalis, 2014. "Bucking the Trend: The Informativeness of Analyst Contrarian Recommendations," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 43(2), pages 391-414, June.
    13. Hassan Tehranian & Mengxing Zhao & Julie L. Zhu, 2014. "Can Analysts Analyze Mergers?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(4), pages 959-979, April.
    14. Kong, Dongmin & Lin, Zhiyang & Wang, Yanan & Xiang, Junyi, 2021. "Natural disasters and analysts' earnings forecasts," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    15. Andreas Charitou & Irene Karamanou, 2020. "Sleeping with the enemy: should investment banks be allowed to engage in prop trading?," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 513-557, June.
    16. Lawrence D. Brown & Andrew C. Call & Michael B. Clement & Nathan Y. Sharp, 2015. "Inside the “Black Box” of Sell‐Side Financial Analysts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(1), pages 1-47, March.
    17. Vesa Pursiainen, 2022. "Cultural Biases in Equity Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(1), pages 163-211, February.
    18. Akyol, Ali C. & Qian, Yiming & Yu, Frank, 2023. "How do experienced analysts improve price efficiency?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    19. Elizabeth Devos & Erik Devos & Seow Eng Ong & Andrew C. Spieler, 2016. "Who Follows REITs?," Journal of Real Estate Research, American Real Estate Society, vol. 38(1), pages 129-164.
    20. Zhongwei Huang & Thomas Jeanjean & Daphne Lui, 2023. "Analyst independence and earnings management," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3-4), pages 598-621, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:151:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s10551-016-3244-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.