Can Disclosure Characteristics Improve Analyst Forecast Accuracy? PDF Download

Author: Michelle Hutchens
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Languages : en
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This study provides new evidence about how tax footnote disclosure characteristics can alleviate errors in analyst forecasts of a firm's effective tax rate (ETR). Despite the importance of income taxes to a firm's bottom line, prior studies indicate that analysts and investors do not fully grasp the complexities of income taxes. Additionally, the FASB is interested in improving the effectiveness of financial statement footnotes and is evaluating the income tax footnote as part of the Disclosure Framework Project. I find that disclosures containing more quantitative information, less jargon, fewer complex words, and/or less legal terminology alleviate analysts' ETR forecast errors related to complexity in income tax accounting. Collectively, my findings provide evidence regarding the areas of accounting for income taxes that make forecasting ETRs difficult and the disclosure characteristics that aid analysts' understanding of tax information and thereby improve their ETR forecasts.

Author: Sami Keskek
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ISBN:
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Languages : en
Pages : 48

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We posit and find an effect of disclosure and analyst reporting regulations implemented from 2000 through 2003 (including Regulation Fair Disclosure, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the Global Settlement Act) on the importance of analyst and forecast characteristics for analyst forecast accuracy. Following the enactment of these regulations, more experienced analysts and All-Star analysts do not maintain their superior forecast accuracy, and analysts employed by large brokerage houses perform worse than other analysts. In addition, we find a decrease in the importance of analyst effort, the number of industries and firms followed, days elapsed since the last forecast, and forecast horizon. While the importance of bold upward forecast revisions does not change, bold downward revisions lose their relevance for forecast accuracy after 2003. Finally, we find an increase in the important of prior forecast accuracy. We find that the importance of these characteristics varies with the precision of publicly available information. Specifically, the decrease in the importance of most analyst and forecast characteristics and the increase in the importance of prior forecast accuracy are greater when the precision of publicly available information is low. Overall, our results suggest that the positive effects of experience, effort, brokerage house size, and All-Star status on forecast accuracy in the pre-regulation period were because of the information advantages that these analysts enjoyed (rather than their ability to generate private information). In contrast, our results suggest that prior forecast accuracy is related to analysts' ability to generate private information.

Author: Matthias Demmer
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Languages : en
Pages : 61

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This study examines whether the improvement in analyst forecast accuracy around mandatory IFRS adoption is associated with the improvement in the accuracy of financial statement-based forecasts. We find significant out-of-sample improvement in financial statement-based forecast accuracy around mandatory IFRS adoption and significant improvement in analyst forecast accuracy only in countries that made concurrent improvements to financial reporting enforcement. We show that the improvement in analyst forecast accuracy is associated with the improvement in financial statement-based forecast accuracy around IFRS adoption. We also show that analyst forecasts, particularly for firms whose analysts forecast under favorable conditions (i.e., analysts who are less busy with more experience and resources), have a greater association with financial statement-based forecasts after mandatory IFRS adoption in countries with concurrent changes in enforcement. Furthermore, we document that analyst forecasts, particulary for firms whose analysts forecast under unfavorable conditions (i.e., analysts who are busier with less experience and resources), do not fully exploit the predictive ability of financial statements after IFRS adoption for firms in countries without concurrent changes in enforcement. Finally, we find that the analyst underreliance on financial-statement based forecasts is associated with year-ahead stock returns. These results are robust to controlling for disclosure quality and comparability. The findings are important for understanding the impact of mandatory IFRS adoption on the predictive ability of financial statements, and for understanding analysts' use of financial statements around mandatory IFRS adoption.

Author: Ole-Kristian Hope
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Languages : en
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Using a sample from 22 countries, I investigate the relations between the accuracy of analysts' earnings forecasts and the level of annual report disclosure; and between forecast accuracy and the degree of enforcement of accounting standards. I document that firm-level disclosures are positively related to forecast accuracy, suggesting that such disclosures provide useful information to analysts. I construct a comprehensive measure of enforcement and find that strong enforcement is associated with higher forecast accuracy. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that enforcement encourages managers to follow prescribed accounting rules, which, in turn, reduces analysts' uncertainty about future earnings. I also find evidence consistent with disclosures being more important when analyst following is low and with enforcement being more important when more choice among accounting methods is allowed.

Author: Financial Analysts Federation
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ISBN:
Category : Business forecasting
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Author: Hassan Espahbodi
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Category : Accounting
Languages : en
Pages : 41

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Violation of securities laws and corporate scandals led to the passage of Regulation Fair Disclosure and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and to the Global Analyst Research Settlement, in early 2000. These regulations were designed to protect investors by reducing analyst conflicts of interest and improving the quality of financial information. As such, these regulations were expected to improve analysts' earnings forecast. This paper examines the trend in accuracy and dispersion of analysts' earnings forecasts over the period 1994-2009 to determine if forecast properties improved following these regulations. Consistent with the evidence provided by many of the earlier studies, we do find that forecast accuracy and dispersion improved during the period immediately after these regulations. This finding supports the notion (although it does not prove) that these regulations achieved their objectives in the short run. However, univariate and multivariate tests over the longer period show that analyst forecast accuracy declined and forecast dispersion significantly increased in subsequent years. The results are robust to alternative measures of our dependent variables, specifications of pre- and post-regulation periods, and sample composition; and imply that these regulations did not collectively improve the information environment despite the reduction in analyst conflicts of interest. The continued problem with the information environment, therefore, seems to be largely due to the quality of financial reports. Also, the difference between short- and long-term results suggest that regulators need to weigh the cost of regulations against both their short- and long-term benefits.

Author: John Nowland
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Languages : en
Pages :

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Prior research has shown improvements in analysts' forecast accuracy around various events (e.g. new disclosure regulations or cross-listings), but these studies do not consider a change in the composition and ability of analysts providing forecasts over time. By studying foreign firms cross-listing on U.S. stock exchanges, we find that analyst composition changes by over 50 percent during the three-year period around cross-listing. We show that cross-listing is associated with a shift away from analysts who are less accurate forecasters and toward analysts who are more accurate forecasters. This shift in analyst composition accounts for a significant improvement of 9.5 percent in analyst forecast accuracy. In addition, we document that changes in both analyst ability and public information disclosure affect analyst forecast accuracy around cross-listing. Our results indicate that researchers should control for changes in analyst composition and ability when measuring the impact of specific events on analyst forecast accuracy.

Author: Wenjuan Xie
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 42

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This study examines the impact of unidentifiable individual differences among financial analysts on the cross section of their earnings forecast accuracy. Various psychological factors, such as decision style and personality traits, are documented to impact individuals' decision making. However, analysts' individual differences in such psychological factors are not captured by identifiable personal attributes employed in finance literature, such as years of experience. In this paper, we employ the concept of analyst fixed effects to control for unidentifiable individual differences. Examining the factors related to forecast accuracy, we document that controlling for these unidentifiable analyst-specific effects improves model fitting, and changes the explanatory power of some of the traditionally used independent variables in the literature. We confirm that the analyst's firm-specific experience, the intensity of following that a firm receives, and the forecast horizon are all significantly and consistently related to forecast accuracy. However, we find that analyst general experience and coverage complexity lose explanatory power when individual differences are controlled for. Furthermore, we document that analyst general experience is not monotonically associated with better accuracy, and that analysts only benefit from increased general experience during the early to middle stages of their career. Finally, we observe that when analysts' individual differences are controlled for, the boldness of a forecast revision is no longer a significant determinant of the improvement of accuracy. This is one of the first studies to highlight the necessity of recognizing individual differences among financial analysts. We argue that this treatment advances the literature of analyst forecast performance, and closely relates financial agents' decision making to psychology theories of decision style and personality.

Author: Nooraisah Katmun
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Category :
Languages : en
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This study consists of three main projects covering (i) the relationship between disclosure quality and earnings management and (ii) the relationship between corporate governance and disclosure quality. Disclosure quality is measures using the IR Magazine Award, the forward looking information in the annual report, and the analyst forecast accuracy. Match-paired samples comprised of the winners and non-winners of the IR Magazine Award during the years from 2005-2008 were employed in this study. Simultaneity bias in all projects was remedied by the use of a simultaneous system of equation, which was estimated using two-stage least square regression (2SLS). This study provides several interesting findings. With regard to the first project, disclosure quality and earnings management, it is shown that all disclosure quality proxies are consistently reported significant negative relationship with earnings management in the OLS regression. However, audit committee characteristics and board characteristics reveal insignificant relationship with earnings management, except audit committee meeting which reported positive association. Concerning the potential complementary and substitutive effect of internal governance and disclosure quality in deterring earnings management, result of the interaction terms revealed that there is a complementary relationship between audit committee quality and disclosure quality (measured using Investor Relation Magazine Award) in deterring earnings management. When disclosure quality and earnings management are treated as endogenous, this study reveals that there is a significant bi-directional relationship between disclosure quality and earnings management, highlighting that causality can run in both directions. This suggests that future research should control for disclosure quality factors when examining the impact of corporate governance and earnings management and that the potential simultaneity between disclosure quality and earnings management should be considered in future models. With respect to the second project, corporate governance and disclosure quality, this study reveals that audit committee effectiveness, board meeting and board independent are significantly positively related to disclosure quality (measured using IR Magazine Award and the number of forward looking items in the annual report). With regard to the potential complementary or substitutive effect between board and audit committee characteristics in improving firm disclosure quality, this study reveal that there is a substitutive effect between board quality and audit quality in enhancing disclosure quality (measured using analyst forecast accuracy). If disclosure quality and board independence are treated as endogenous, there is a significant positive bi-directional relationship between them when disclosure quality is measured using the number of forward looking items. However, there is a negative bi-directional relationship and an insignificant bi-directional relationship shown when disclosure quality is measured using analyst forecast accuracy and the IR Magazine Award respectively.

Author: Rucsandra Moldovan
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Languages : en
Pages : 0

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This thesis contains three stand-alone essays on the operating segment disclosures that European multi-segment companies make under IFRS 8 Operating Segments. Each essay aims to improve our collective understanding about managers' disclosure strategy by examining various characteristics of operating segment disclosure. Chapter I, entitled “The Interplay between Segment Disclosure Quantity and Quality,” investigates managers' choices with respect to both disclosure quantity and disclosure quality, and the usefulness of these two characteristics for financial analysts. Focusing on segment disclosures under the management approach, I measure quantity as the number of segment-level line items and quality as the cross-segment variation in profitability, and argue that greater managerial discretion can be exercised over quality than over quantity. I hypothesize and find that managers solve proprietary concerns either by deviating from the suggested line-item disclosure in the standard, or if following standard guidance, by decreasing segment reporting quality. Moreover, financial analysts do not always understand the quality of segment disclosures, which suggests that a business-model type of standard creates difficulties even for sophisticated users. My results inform standard setters as they start working on a disclosure framework and as they seem to consider the business model approach to financial reporting. Chapter II is entitled “Inconsistent Segment Disclosure across Corporate Documents.” Market regulators in the U.S. and Europe investigate cases of inconsistent disclosures when a company provides different information on the same topic in different documents. Focusing on operating segments, this essay uses hand-collected data from four different corporate documents of multi-segment firms to analyze the impact of inconsistent disclosure on financial analysts' earnings forecast accuracy. Inconsistencies that arise from further disaggregation of operating segments in some documents seem to bring in new information and increase analyst accuracy. However, when analysts must work with different, difficult-to-reconcile segmentations, their information processing capacity and forecasts are less accurate. These findings contribute to our understanding of the effects of managers' disclosure strategy across multiple documents and have implications for regulators and standard setters' work on a disclosure framework. Chapter III is entitled “Management Guidance at the Segment Level.” Prior research has found that managers add information to their earnings guidance to justify, explain, or contextualize their forecasts. I identify segment-level guidance (SLG) as a type of disaggregated information that multi-segment firms provide with their management guidance, and investigate its usefulness for financial analysts' earnings forecasting accuracy, as well as its influence on managers' earnings fixation. I further characterize the level of precision (point and range, maximum or minimum estimate, or simply narrative) and of disaggregation of SLG. I find that companies in high tech industries known for increased uncertainty in future performance are less likely to provide SLG, and that SLG is associated with better forecasting accuracy. However, while providing more item-disaggregated SLG improves accuracy, increased precision has no impact on forecast accuracy. From the manager's point of view, SLG creates incentives to engage in earnings management, and the more precise the SLG is the greater the incentive. In contrast, more item-disaggregated SLG discourages earnings management, perhaps by improving monitoring. In a context where qualitative, narrative, and disaggregated guidance is regarded as a solution to avoid earnings fixation and short termism, understanding which types of information achieve this goal, and how, is relevant for managers, investors, and regulators alike.