Topic: Analyst Forecast Inefficiency in Reaction to Earnings News: Cognitive Bias
vs. Economic Incentives
Presenter：Chansog (Francis) Kim， Associate Professor of Accounting, City University of Hong Kong 
|
Time: May 16, 2008（Friday）3：00—4：30 PM
Venue: Room 501, Jiageng Bld 2
Chair： Xinrong Qiang, associate professor in accounting, IFAS
Abstract：
This study examines whether and to what degree analyst forecast optimism and
misreaction to earnings news are driven by cognitive bias and/or economic incentives, such as
the incentive to gain access to insider information, to create investment banking business for their
employers and to boost trading. We find that I/B/E/S analysts’ initial forecasts after annual
earnings announcement are optimistic and analysts overreact (underreact) to good (bad) news in
prior-year earnings changes. Both analysts’ optimism and inefficient reaction to different states of
earnings news become more pronounced as information uncertainty increases. We do not find
significant differences in misreactions to earnings news between Value Line and I/B/E/S analyst
forecasts. Optimism is significantly lower in the Value Line forecasts than in I/B/E/S forecasts.
The findings are consistent with the notion that broker-analysts specific economic incentives such
as the incentives to boost trading and to promote investment-banking are mostly reflected in their
forecast optimism, not in their misreaction to earnings news. Finally we find no evidence of
significant misreaction to earnings news post-Regulation Fair Disclosure (FD), whereas we still
observe a significant, albeit reduced, optimism post-FD, particularly when uncertainty is high. In
sum these results are more consistent with the notion that analyst forecast misreaction to
earnings news pre-FD was driven by analysts’ incentives to maintain access to managerial
information. However, optimistic bias seems to be driven by both economic incentives and
cognitive bias.
Presenter Introduction：
Prof. Kim received his B.A. degree in Economics from Sogang University Korea, MBA from Western Illinois University, and Ph.D. degree in Accounting from Baruch College of City University of New York. His research interest includes financial accounting, management accounting and international accounting.
Download: paper