Information Content of Equity Analyst Reports
Name
4264-02.pdf
Size
200.67 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
90095c56fe8aee0fe0170444ea294fd0
Author(s)
Asquith, Paul
Mikhail, Michael
Au, Andrea
Date Issued
November 23, 2004
Series/Report no.
MIT Sloan School of Management Working Paper;4264-02
Abstract
This paper catalogs the complete text of a large sample of All-American Analyst reports and examines the market
reaction to the information released. It shows that the text of the report, which provides the justifications supporting
an analyst's summary opinion, provides information beyond that contained in earnings forecasts, recommendation
levels, and price targets. Including the strength of the analyst's justifications, reduces, and in some models
eliminates, the significance of the information available in earnings forecasts and recommendation revisions. By
controlling for the simultaneous release of other information, we show that analyst reports do not merely repeat firm
releases of information, but also provide both new information and/or interpretation of previously released
information to the market. By examining whether the market's reaction differs by report type (i.e. upgrade,
reiteration, or downgrade), we demonstrate that information in a report is most important for downgrades and that
target prices and the strength of the justifications are the only elements that matter for reiterations. Finally, we find
no correlation between the valuation methodology used by analysts and either the market's reaction to a report's
release or the analyst's accuracy. Our adjusted R2 of nearly 26% is three or four times larger than that of other
studies using only partial content from analyst reports.
Subjects
Stock recommendations
price targets
earnings forecasts
security analysts
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