Sell-side analysts employ different benchmarks when defining their stock recommendations. For example, a ‘buy’ for some brokers means the stock is expected to outperform its peers in the same sector (“industry benchmarkers”), while for other brokers it means the stock is expected to outperform the market (“market benchmarkers”), or just some absolute return (“total benchmarkers”). We use these ...

AIMS To evaluate the association between working conditions and visual fatigue and mental health among systems analysts living in São Paulo, Brazil. METHODS A cross sectional study was carried out by a multidisciplinary team. It included: ergonomic analysis of work, individual and group interviews, and 553 self applied questionnaires in two enterprises. The comparison population numbered 136 ...

Previous literature studying analysts’ earnings forecasts examines their properties without considering firms’ response to analysts’ forecasts. This study improves upon previous research by considering firms’ earnings management with respect to analysts’ forecasts. I hypothesize that analysts understand firms’ earnings management practices, and incorporate firms’ expected behavior into their fo...

Recent studies find that stocks with higher dispersion of analysts’ earnings forecasts have lower future returns. The phenomenon is popularly interpreted as evidence that stock prices reflect optimism in the presence of differences of opinions and short-sales constraints. This paper shows that there is also a negative relationship between forecast dispersion and a firm’s unexpected future earni...

We examine how alumni ties with corporate boards differentially affect male and female analysts' job performance and career outcomes. Connection improves men's job performance— forecasting accuracy and recommendation impact—significantly more than women's. Controlling for performance, connection further contributes to men's, but not women's, likelihood of being voted by institutional investors ...

With increasing emphasis being placed on corporate social responsibility, the number of companies furnishing responsibility (CSR) reports is increasing. This study investigates impact abnormal positive tone in CSR analysts’ earnings forecast bias. The textual analysis Chinese listed between 2006 and 2016 reveals that an significantly positively relates to optimistic bias forecasts. effect prono...

A number of articles have explored analysts' earnings estimates, analysts' forecasting ability and the reaction of stock prices to earnings announcements. The concern of this paper is the group of stocks whose earnings announcements constitute positive "earnings surprise" given a consensus of analysts' expected earnings. The consensus derives from a twenty quarter, seasonally adjusted earnings ...

Recent research suggests that optimistically biased earnings forecasts issued by analysts are attributable to analysts minimizing symmetric, linear loss functions. We test an alternative explanation, namely that analysts have asymmetric loss functions. Theory predicts that if loss functions are asymmetric then forecast error bias depends on forecast error variance, but not necessarily on skewne...