IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-02312632.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Target price accuracy in equity research

Author

Listed:
  • Stefano Bonini

    (Bocconi University [Milan, Italy])

  • Laura Zanetti

    (Bocconi University [Milan, Italy])

  • Roberto Bianchini
  • Antonio Salvi

    (EM - EMLyon Business School)

Abstract

Analysts' target prices have received limited attention in academic research. In this paper we try to fill the gap by developing an innovative multi-layer accuracy metric that we test on a novel database. Our analysis shows that forecasting accuracy is very limited: prediction errors are consistent, auto-correlated, non-mean reverting and large (up to 36.6%). The size of forecasting errors increases with the predicted growth in the stock price, the size of the company and for loss making firms. Additionally, the intensity of research and the market momentum negatively affect accuracy. These results suggest that analysts' research is systematically biased which supports theoretical predictions by Ottaviani and Sorensen (2006). Since stock price forecasting is largely an unmonitored activity, market participants may fail in fully understanding this behavior, thus not arbitraging away these inefficiencies.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefano Bonini & Laura Zanetti & Roberto Bianchini & Antonio Salvi, 2010. "Target price accuracy in equity research," Post-Print hal-02312632, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02312632
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5957.2010.02209.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Elton, Edwin J & Gruber, Martin J & Grossman, Seth, 1986. "Discrete Expectational Data and Portfolio Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(3), pages 699-713, July.
    2. Womack, Kent L, 1996. "Do Brokerage Analysts' Recommendations Have Investment Value?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 137-167, March.
    3. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:5:p:1933-1968 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Francis, J & Soffer, L, 1997. "The relative informativeness of analysts' stock recommendations and earnings forecast revisions," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 193-211.
    5. Liu, Pu & Smith, Stanley D. & Syed, Azmat A., 1990. "Stock Price Reactions to The Wall Street Journal's Securities Recommendations," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(3), pages 399-410, September.
    6. Lys, Thomas & Sohn, Sungkyu, 1990. "The association between revisions of financial analysts' earnings forecasts and security-price changes," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 341-363, December.
    7. Asquith, Paul & Mikhail, Michael B. & Au, Andrea S., 2005. "Information content of equity analyst reports," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 245-282, February.
    8. Marco Ottaviani & Peter Norman Sørensen, 2006. "Reputational cheap talk," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(1), pages 155-175, March.
    9. Bjerring, James H & Lakonishok, Josef & Vermaelen, Theo, 1983. "Stock Prices and Financial Analysts' Recommendations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 38(1), pages 187-204, March.
    10. Falkenstein, Eric G, 1996. "Preferences for Stock Characteristics as Revealed by Mutual Fund Portfolio Holdings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 111-135, March.
    11. Barber, Brad M. & Lehavy, Reuven & McNichols, Maureen & Trueman, Brett, 2006. "Buys, holds, and sells: The distribution of investment banks' stock ratings and the implications for the profitability of analysts' recommendations," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1-2), pages 87-117, April.
    12. Welch, Ivo, 2000. "Herding among security analysts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 369-396, December.
    13. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:1083-1124 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. 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.
    15. Beneish, Messod D, 1991. "Stock Prices and the Dissemination of Analysts' Recommendations," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(3), pages 393-416, July.
    16. 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.
    17. Stickel, Se, 1990. "Predicting Individual Analyst Earnings Forecasts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 409-417.
    18. Lloyd-Davies, Peter & Canes, Michael, 1978. "Stock Prices and the Publication of Second-Hand Information," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(1), pages 43-56, January.
    19. 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. Asquith, Paul & Mikhail, Michael & Au, Andrea, 2004. "Information Content of Equity Analyst Reports," Working papers 4264-02, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    2. Paul Asquith & Michael B. Mikhail & Andrea S. Au, 2002. "Information Content of Equity Analyst Reports," NBER Working Papers 9246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Asquith, Paul & Mikhail, Michael B. & Au, Andrea S., 2005. "Information content of equity analyst reports," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 245-282, February.
    4. Nerissa C. Brown & Kelsey D. Wei & Russ Wermers, 2014. "Analyst Recommendations, Mutual Fund Herding, and Overreaction in Stock Prices," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(1), pages 1-20, January.
    5. Marina Balboa & J. Carlos Gómez‐Sala & Germán López‐Espinosa, 2009. "The Value of Adjusting the Bias in Recommendations: International Evidence," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 15(1), pages 208-230, January.
    6. Savor, Pavel G., 2012. "Stock returns after major price shocks: The impact of information," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(3), pages 635-659.
    7. Adria Pop & Jan Sporer & Siegfried Handschuh, 2024. "The Structure of Financial Equity Research Reports -- Identification of the Most Frequently Asked Questions in Financial Analyst Reports to Automate Equity Research Using Llama 3 and GPT-4," Papers 2407.18327, arXiv.org.
    8. Raj Aggarwal & Dev Mishra & Craig Wilson, 2018. "Analyst recommendations and the implied cost of equity," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 717-743, April.
    9. Andrea S Au, 2007. "Extracting information from European analyst forecasts," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(4), pages 228-237, November.
    10. 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.
    11. Hsieh, Wen-liang Gideon & Lee, Chin-Shen, 2021. "Who reacts to what information in securities analyst reports? Direct evidence from the investor trade imbalance," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    12. Gus De Franco & Hai Lu & Florin P. Vasvari, 2007. "Wealth Transfer Effects of Analysts' Misleading Behavior," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 71-110, March.
    13. 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.
    14. Tsung-Yu Hsieh & Tsai-Yin Lin & Fangjhy Li & Yi-Ting Huang, 2023. "Analyst’s Target Price Revision and Dealer’s Trading Behavior Analysis: Evidence from Taiwanese Stock Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-9, February.
    15. Son, Byung-Gak & Sodhi, ManMohan & Kocabasoglu-Hillmer, Canan & Lee, Tae-Hee, 2016. "Supply chain information in analyst reports on publicly traded companies," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(P3), pages 350-360.
    16. Koji Ota, 2012. "Information Content of Analysts' Stock Ratings and Earnings Forecasts in the Presence of Management Earnings Forecasts," The Japanese Accounting Review, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, vol. 2, pages 87-116, December.
    17. Moshirian, Fariborz & Ng, David & Wu, Eliza, 2009. "The value of stock analysts' recommendations: Evidence from emerging markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 18(1-2), pages 74-83, March.
    18. Victor Tiberius & Laura Lisiecki, 2019. "Stock Price Forecast Accuracy and Recommendation Profitability of Financial Magazines," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-8, October.
    19. Li, Xi, 2005. "The persistence of relative performance in stock recommendations of sell-side financial analysts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1-3), pages 129-152, December.
    20. 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.

    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:hal:journl:hal-02312632. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.