Do Foreign Cash Holdings Generate Uncertainty for Analysts?

Abstract

This study examines whether foreign cash holdings increase the complexity of analysts’ forecasting tasks, thereby affecting their earnings forecasts’ properties. In forecasting future earnings, analysts face uncertainty in understanding the firm’s economic situation, especially if cash is held by foreign subsidiaries – given that it may be subject to investment inefficiencies. The lack of disclosure about foreign cash makes it difficult for analysts to anticipate and fully incorporate in their estimates the negative performance consequences of foreign cash holdings. Using a sample of U.S. multinational corporations and estimating their foreign cash holdings, we show that a firm with an average level of estimated foreign cash to total assets has a 12.5% higher forecast error and a 13.7% higher forecast dispersion (relative to firms without foreign cash). Moreover, we document that estimated foreign cash is negatively associated with future performance and that, in the presence of large amounts of foreign cash, financial analysts issue more optimistic forecasts. Cross-section analyses show that estimated foreign cash holdings affect analysts’ forecasts to a larger extent in the absence of disclosure, consistent with the idea that the lack of disclosure restricts financial analysts’ ability to fully incorporate in their estimates the effect of foreign cash.