Interactions between Analyst Earnings Forecasts and Management Earnings Forecasts

Abstract

We examine interactions between analyst earnings forecasts and management earnings forecasts by investigating: (1) managers’ comparative efficiency relative to analysts at incorporating past earnings changes, accruals, stock returns and analyst-based earnings surprises into their earnings forecasts; (2) extent to which analyst inefficiencies in incorporating these four pieces of publicly available information into their earnings forecasts prompt managers to issue earnings forecasts; and (3) role of these four pieces of information at improving analyst forecasts after they have observed management forecasts. We show that: (1) unlike analysts, managers do efficiently incorporate information from past returns into their earnings forecasts; (2) analysts’ failure to incorporate past returns information into earnings forecasts is the primary trigger for managers to issue their own earnings forecasts; and (3) after management forecasts, analyst forecasts improve most significantly with respect to incorporating past returns information.