Significant changes in mean and median analysts’ forecasts errors documented in recent studies are not synchronized across commercial forecast databases over time and are, in large part, a function of the definitions and procedures that determine the reported earnings component of earnings surprises. In this study we describe a number of complications researchers face in drawing inferences from...

This paper studied the relationship between the management characteristics and the earnings forecast disclosure willingness within Chinese listed companies. Management characteristics were being defined and summarized as four aspects: structure characteristics, incentive characteristics, background characteristics and external governance mechanism. The Logistic regression model was applied to c...

An important problem facing managers is how to enhance the credibility, or believability, of their earnings forecasts. In this paper, we experimentally test whether a characteristic of a management earnings forecast—namely, whether it is disaggregated—can affect its credibility. We also test whether disaggregation moderates the relation between managerial incentives and forecast credibility. Di...

Several 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 stocks with higher forecast dispersion also experience poorer operating performance in the future. We...

I examine the impact of management cash flow forecasts on investors and analysts. The news in management cash flow forecasts is priced beyond total earnings news. Analysts revise earnings forecasts more for the news in these forecasts than for the news in accruals. I further find that the market’s higher pricing of cash flow forecast news is greater for firms 1) with bad earnings news, 2) in fi...

Using data from 1990-2013, we show 1) the serial correlation of analyst forecast errors increases in the extent of international diversification, 2) PEAD based on analyst forecast errors increases in the extent of international diversification, and 3) the impact of international diversification on the serial correlation of analyst forecast errors and the associated drift is significantly reduce...

We examine whether the post forecast revision drift is attributable to investors’ underreaction to industry-wide and/or firm-specific earnings news in analysts’ forecast revisions. We find a large drift associated with industry-wide earnings news but, on average, no drift associated with firm-specific earnings news. Consistent with the functional fixation hypothesis, we show empirically that th...

This paper examines the association of comprehensive income with subsequent period net income as well as analysts’ earnings forecasts. Our results support the notion that comprehensive income is incrementally useful in predicting subsequent period changes in net income. We also document that comprehensive income is associated with analysts’ earnings forecast revisions and forecast errors. The e...

This paper evaluates the information content of analysts’ one-quarter ahead earnings forecast revisions and recommendation revisions at various points in time relative to earnings announcement dates. We conduct three sets of tests to evaluate the information content of revisions. Across all tests, we find that the revisions are least informative in the week after earnings announcements and that...