Does the financial analysts' usage of non-financial information influence the analysts' forecast accuracy? Some evidence from the Belgian sell-side financial analyst (original) (raw)

The information content of financial analysts' forecasts of earnings

Journal of Accounting and Economics, 1979

The paper assesses the information content of revisions in financial analysts' forecasts of earnings by analyzing the relation between the direction of these revisions and stock price behavior. Abnormal returns during the months surrounding the revisions in analysts' forecasts are computed and evaluated. The results strongly indicate that information on revisions in forecasts of earnings per share is valuable to investors. It is also suggested that market reaction to the disclosure of analysts' forecasts is relatively slow and gives rise to potential abnormal returns to investors who act upon this type of publicly available information.

Does Firm Reporting Quality and Analyst Forecasting Skill Influence the Analyst Choice to Issue Revenue Forecasts?

Social Science Research Network, 2011

This study documents that analysts are more likely to issue revenue forecasts to complement earnings-per-share (EPS) estimates when the quality of firm financial reporting is low. This is because, compared to EPS forecast accuracy, revenue forecast accuracy is less adversely affected by poor reporting quality. Consequently, investors rely more on revenue than EPS estimates in their investment decisions, when the reporting quality is low. The result is robust to using five proxies for the quality of firm financial reporting: the variation in discretionary accruals, the absolute level of discretionary accruals, earnings persistence, absolute total accruals, and earnings volatility. Further, we document that better earnings forecasters are more likely to issue revenue estimates. This is because only more skilled analysts would want their forecasts to be subject to higher market scrutiny, and because a combination of accurate revenue and EPS forecasts is a stronger signal of the analyst forecasting skill compared to an accurate stand-alone EPS estimate. Keywords analyst EPS forecasts • complementary revenue forecasts • financial reporting quality • analyst forecasting skill JEL Classification M41 • N20 We thank Asad Kausar, John O'Hanlon, Ken Peasnell, Norman Strong and Steve Young for comments and suggestions.

Factors Affecting the Accuracy of Analysts’ Forecasts: A Review of the Literature

Social Science Research Network, 2019

This study conducts a comprehensive review of the literature published during 1996-2017 to identify the factors that affect the accuracy of financial analysts' forecasts. We organize our review around three main groups, namely, (a) drivers of analyst forecast accuracy, (b) quality financial reporting, and (c) accounting standards. Among the several factors found, some factors (experience of the analyst, earnings quality, audit quality, IFRS adoption, and annual report readability) have a positive relationship with the accuracy of analysts' forecasts while others (politically connected firms, firms audited by Non-Big 4, and international GAAP differences) have a negative relationship. Our findings contribute to future research by examining the factors affecting analyst forecast accuracy from different perspectives, which will prove to be useful for academicians, regulators, investors, and financial analysts.

How certain firm-specific characteristics affect the accuracy and dispersion of analysts' forecasts

Journal of Business Research, 1995

We suggest that analysts" uncertainty in predicting earnings is a function off (1) the uncertainty due to production, investment, and financing (PIF) activities, and (2) the amount of information available about the firm. We use a latent variable approach to explore this framework. Observed indicator variables are used to represent the underlying unobserved attributes. The results show that analysts' uncertainty is a positive function of business risk, financial risk, and ownership concentration, and is negatively related to the amount of information, j BUSN RES 1995. 34.161--169 E arnings forecasts are required by the investment community and academic researchers for firm valuation and to measure unexpected earnings. Research that has examined the accuracy and dispersion of analysts' earnings forecasts document that financial analysts' forecasts are generally superior to the predictions generated by time-series models (see . Yet, analysts' forecasts show significant firmand industry-specific dispersion and variation in accuracy (Elton, Gruber, and Gultekin, 1982;. Two comprehensive reviews of the forecast literature by and conclude that very little is known about the determinants of the error and dispersion of analysts' forecasts and how such determinants are related to one another. Schipper (1991) suggests the future research to investigate what information appears to be impounded in analysts' forecasts as it is close to studying analyst decision processes.

Corporate Nonfinancial Disclosure Practices and Financial Analyst Forecast Ability Across Three European Countries

Journal of International Financial Management and Accounting, 2003

This paper presents evidence that companies across three continental European countries (Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands) provide varying degrees of analyst recommended nonfinancial disclosures to the marketplace. This study is the first to examine the relationship of Jenkins Committee nonfinancial disclosure levels with the accuracy and dispersion of financial analysts' earnings forecasts. Seemingly unrelated regression tests show that larger companies and companies with a global focus voluntarily provide higher levels of both forward looking and historical nonfinancial disclosures. Additionally, higher levels of forward looking nonfinancial disclosures are associated with lower dispersion and higher accuracy in financial analysts' earnings forecasts.

The Impact of Management Forecasts on Analyst Forecast Characteristics

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012

Although managers possess superior firm-level information, recent studies document that management forecasts are less accurate than analyst forecasts. The differences in accuracy can be due to differences in biases, differences in forecast efficiency, or both. We test these hypotheses by comparing investors' earnings expectations, as reflected in stock prices, to that of the managers and analysts, as reflected in their respective forecasts. We find that for the sample of firms that have analyst as well as management forecasts, managers provided more efficient forecasts. However, management forecasts are optimistically biased whereas analyst forecasts are unbiased (only in the presence of a management forecasts). In sum, the superior analyst forecast accuracy is due to management bias rather than better forecasting efficiency.

The role of accounting fundamentals and other information in analyst forecast errors

International Finance, 2018

In this paper, we study analyst forecast errors in the United States, and decompose these errors into two different sources: accounting fundamentals and other information. Using data from 1983 to 2012, our results lead to two conclusions. First, using the decomposition approach, we show that on average, the component of analyst forecast errors based on 'accounting information' is optimistic; however, the component of analyst forecast errors based on 'other information' is pessimistic. Second, although occasionally analysts make forecasts with small errors, the decomposition of such errors provide, on average, larger (positive) accounting errors, and larger (negative) other information errors. In this case, our results suggest that analysts' luck occasionally surpasses their skills.

Neither Optimistic nor Pessimistic: The Role of Accounting Fundamentals and Other Information on Analyst Forecast Errors

2015

During the last years researchers have produced an array of empirical evidences that have long offered conflicting conclusions according to how biased are the information provided by analysts. One of the reasons for such empirical controversy is that too little is known in the literature about analysts’ actual loss functions, and the usual methodologies thus leave unresolved the questions of what cause asymmetries in forecast errors distribution and to what extent analysts fully reflect public available information. In this paper we implement an approach that allow us to disaggregate analyst forecast errors into an error related with past accounting information and another error related with other information, in order to evaluate the extent in which analyst forecast errors are related with information from these two different sources. Our analyses lead to two conclusions: first, accurate forecasts can be done even when it is associated with large positive accounting errors and larg...

Bias and Efficiency: A Comparison of Analyst Forecasts and Management Forecasts

Extant literature documents that analyst forecasts are optimistically biased and fail to incorporate information in prior returns. This paper extends similar tests to examine management forecast characteristics. We find that, in contrast to analyst forecast errors, management forecast errors cannot be predicted by prior returns or accruals. We also document that while both management forecasts and analyst forecasts are inaccurate, the sources of the inaccuracies are different. For the sample of firms that have analyst as well as management forecasts available, management forecasts are more efficient, which we define as better reflecting information in stock prices. However, management forecasts are more optimistically biased compared to analyst forecasts. We also find that the biases in management forecasts and inefficiency in analyst forecasts decline for more recent forecasts, however, the biases and inefficiencies are not eliminated.