IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/ohidic/2004-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Accurate Earnings Forecasts Facilitate Superior Investment Recommendations?

Author

Listed:
  • Loh, Roger

    (Ohio State U and Singapore Management U)

  • Mian, G. Mujtaba

    (National U of Singapore)

Abstract

We find that analysts who issue more accurate earnings forecasts also issue more profitable stock recommendations. The average factor-adjusted return associated with the recommendations of analysts in the highest accuracy quintile exceeds the return for analysts in the lowest accuracy quintile by 1.27% per month. Our findings provide indirect empirical support for valuation models in the accounting and finance literatures (e.g., Ohlson, 1995) that emphasize the role of future earnings in predicting stock price movements. Our results also suggest that imperfectly efficient markets reward information gatherers, such as security analysts, for their costly activities in generating superior earnings forecasts.

Suggested Citation

  • Loh, Roger & Mian, G. Mujtaba, 2005. "Do Accurate Earnings Forecasts Facilitate Superior Investment Recommendations?," Working Paper Series 2004-17, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:ohidic:2004-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cob.ohio-state.edu/fin/dice/papers/2004/2004-17.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frankel, Richard & Lee, Charles M. C., 1998. "Accounting valuation, market expectation, and cross-sectional stock returns," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 283-319, June.
    2. Mikhail, Michael B. & Walther, Beverly R. & Willis, Richard H., 2004. "Do security analysts exhibit persistent differences in stock picking ability?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 67-91, October.
    3. Grossman, Sanford J & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1980. "On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 393-408, June.
    4. 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.
    5. Dechow, Patricia M. & Hutton, Amy P. & Sloan, Richard G., 1999. "An empirical assessment of the residual income valuation model1," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1-3), pages 1-34, January.
    6. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:1083-1124 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. 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.
    8. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    9. Harrison Hong & Jeffrey D. Kubik & Amit Solomon, 2000. "Security Analysts' Career Concerns and Herding of Earnings Forecasts," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(1), pages 121-144, Spring.
    10. Bradford Cornell, 2001. "Is the Response of Analysts to Information Consistent with Fundamental Valuation? The Case of Intel," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 30(1), Spring.
    11. Charles M. C. Lee & James Myers & Bhaskaran Swaminathan, 1999. "What is the Intrinsic Value of the Dow?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(5), pages 1693-1741, October.
    12. McNichols, M & O'Brien, PC, 1997. "Self-selection and analyst coverage," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35, pages 167-199.
    13. Brad Barber & Reuven Lehavy & Maureen McNichols & Brett Trueman, 2001. "Can Investors Profit from the Prophets? Security Analyst Recommendations and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 531-563, April.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. John C. Easterwood & Stacey R. Nutt, 1999. "Inefficiency in Analysts' Earnings Forecasts: Systematic Misreaction or Systematic Optimism?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(5), pages 1777-1797, October.
    17. Stickel, Scott E, 1992. "Reputation and Performance among Security Analysts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(5), pages 1811-1836, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Loh, Roger K. & Mian, G. Mujtaba, 2006. "Do accurate earnings forecasts facilitate superior investment recommendations?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 455-483, May.
    2. 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.
    3. Kothari, S. P., 2001. "Capital markets research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 105-231, September.
    4. Chen, Li-Wen & Yu, Hsin-Yi & Huang, Hsu-Huei, 2015. "Revisiting the earnings–price effect: The importance of future earnings," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 90-96.
    5. Hall, Jason L. & Tacon, Paul B., 2010. "Forecast accuracy and stock recommendations," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 18-33.
    6. Hassan Tehranian & Mengxing Zhao & Julie L. Zhu, 2014. "Can Analysts Analyze Mergers?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(4), pages 959-979, April.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    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. Lily Fang & Ayako Yasuda, 2014. "Are Stars’ Opinions Worth More? The Relation Between Analyst Reputation and Recommendation Values," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 46(3), pages 235-269, December.
    11. Chen Su & Hanxiong Zhang & Nathan Lael Joseph, 2022. "The performance of UK stock recommendation revisions: Does brokerage house reputation matter?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 3051-3070, July.
    12. AltInkIlIç, Oya & Hansen, Robert S., 2009. "On the information role of stock recommendation revisions," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 17-36, October.
    13. Vesa Pursiainen, 2022. "Cultural Biases in Equity Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(1), pages 163-211, February.
    14. Ioannis Ioannou & George Serafeim, 2015. "The impact of corporate social responsibility on investment recommendations: Analysts' perceptions and shifting institutional logics," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(7), pages 1053-1081, July.
    15. Yang, Yanhua Sunny & Yung, Chris, 2024. "Do analysts distribute negative opinions earlier?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    16. Yonca Ertimur & Jayanthi Sunder & Shyam V. Sunder, 2007. "Measure for Measure: The Relation between Forecast Accuracy and Recommendation Profitability of Analysts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 567-606, June.
    17. 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.
    18. Cheng‐tsu Huang & Chu‐hsuan Chang & Hsiou‐wei Lin, 2021. "Do current‐year forecasts deserve investors' exclusive attention among analyst estimates?," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 21(2), pages 714-723, June.
    19. Birru, Justin & Gokkaya, Sinan & Liu, Xi & Stulz, Rene M., 2019. "Are Analyst Trade Ideas Valuable?," Working Paper Series 2019-15, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    20. Marco Navone & Fernando Zapatero, 2014. "Why Do Financial Analysts Strive to Be Irrelevant? Career Concerns and Endogenous Coverage Termination," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1507, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ecl:ohidic:2004-17. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdohsus.html .

    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.