Impact of market-wide versus firm-specific information on financial analysts

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Farooq

PurposeThis paper documents the effect of different types of information on the value of financial analysts.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use the pooled OLS regression and the data of nonfinancial firms from France to test our hypotheses. The data covers the period between 1997 and 2019.FindingsThe results show that analysts are more likely to cover those firms that incorporated greater proportion of market-wide information in their prices. Consistent with the economies of scale view, the authors argue that analysts specialize in the interpretation market-wide information. By doing so, they are able to cover relatively large number of firms simultaneously. The results also show that the value of analyst coverage (measured as the impact of analyst coverage on firm value, probability of stock price crash and probability of stock price jump) is a function of the extent to which different types of information are incorporated in prices. The authors’ results suggest that the impact of analyst coverage on firm value and on probability of crash is less pronounced in firms that incorporate greater proportion of market-wide information. In case of probability of jump, the results show that the impact of analyst coverage is more pronounced firms that incorporate greater proportion of market-wide information.Originality/valueThe major contribution of this paper is to document the impact of different types of information on the extent of analyst coverage. Furthermore, this paper also uses various measures (the impact of analyst coverage on firm value, probability of stock price crash and probability of stock price jump) to show how different types of information affects the value of analyst coverage.

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guanming He ◽  
Lu Bai ◽  
Helen Mengbing Ren

Purpose Whether financial analysts play an effective role as information intermediaries and monitors has triggered a wide spread of debate among academics and practitioners to date. The purpose of this paper is to complement this debate by investigating the association between analyst coverage and firm-specific future stock price crash risk. Design/methodology/approach Regression analysis is based on a large sample of US public firms and the crash risk measure of Hutton et al. (2009). Potential endogeneity concerns are alleviated by restricting the sample period to the post-Regulation-FD period and conducting an analysis of the impact threshold for a confounding variable method per Larcker and Rusticus (2010). Findings Evidence reveals that a high level of analyst coverage is associated with lower future stock price crash risk. Furthermore, the negative association between analyst coverage and stock price crash risk is stronger for firms that have high financial opacity. Additionally, analyst forecast pessimism is negatively associated with future crash risk. Research limitations/implications Our research provides evidence in support for the view that financial analysts play an active information intermediary role in a way that increases information transparency of a firm and reduces its crash risk. Also, our study offers support for the view that analysts perform an effective monitoring role in a way that constraints management’s bad news hoarding activities and reduces future crash risk. Practical implications This study is of interest to investors who seek analyst reports for their investment decision making and for information providers who demand external financing. The findings of this study also have some other important implications for practitioners, given the economic and welfare consequences of stock price crashes. Originality/value This study offers support for the view that analysts serve positive roles as information intermediaries and monitors in the US stock market.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Li Eng ◽  
Mahelet Fikru ◽  
Thanyaluk Vichitsarawong

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of sustainability disclosures and disclosure ratings on firm value. This paper compares the informativeness of sustainability disclosures in company reports versus environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure ratings. The authors examine the extent to which they provide incremental information. Design/methodology/approach The sample consists of panel data from over 2,600 publicly-listed non-financial US companies for the period 2014–2018. The authors obtain sustainability disclosures from Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Navigator and ESG disclosure scores from Bloomberg. The authors regress market value and/or stock price on sustainability disclosures and ESG scores to evaluate information content. Findings ESG scores are positively associated with market value and price. Sustainability disclosures in the form of metrics and company-tailored narratives provide incremental information content on market value and/or price. Boilerplate disclosures reduce market value and price. Sustainability disclosures and ESG scores provide incremental information, suggesting that it would be beneficial to harmonize standards for reporting sustainability disclosures. Research limitations/implications The limitation is that the authors have only considered sustainability disclosures for a sample of US companies from two sources – SASB Navigator and Bloomberg. Practical implications The paper provides some evidence that may be pertinent to the debate on whether to harmonize the guidance on reporting sustainability issues. Social implications The paper provides evidence on the benefits to firms for reporting sustainability issues. Originality/value This paper is among the first to analyze company sustainability disclosures obtained from two different sources – SASB Navigator and ESG disclosure ratings – and compare them for relevance for company valuation. With SASB Navigator, the authors obtain further refinement into the nature of the information provided in the sustainability disclosures, that is, boilerplate, company-tailored or metrics disclosures.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen J. Mitchell ◽  
Erin M. Hill

AbstractAge-related source memory deficits result, in part, because young and older adults attend to different information. We asked whether focusing young and older adults‘ attention on specific features at encoding would result in similar subjective experiences of the vividness of the features and how this might affect source memory. Ratings of the vividness of visual detail, emotion, and associations were similar for young and older adults both when they were perceiving pictures and when they were thinking about them after a brief delay. Although young adults had better source memory than older adults, source accuracy did not differ depending on feature attended, and correlations between ratings and source memory showed that focus on the different types of information was equally predictive of source memory accuracy for young and older adults. Although preliminary, the results suggest that when attention is focused on specific information at encoding, young and older adults later use the various categories of source-specifying information similarly in making source attributions. Nevertheless, older adults did worse on the source test, suggesting they had less discriminable source information overall, this information was not well bound, and/or they experienced difficulty in strategic retrieval and monitoring processes.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Su-Jane Hsieh ◽  
Yuli Su

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate whether financial analyst coverage affects the dissemination of disclosed operating lease information into cash flow predictions and stock prices.Design/methodology/approachThe difference in lease expense between capital/finance lease and operating lease reporting is estimated based on the approach in Hsieh and Su (2015). This difference is referred to as the earnings impact from operating lease capitalization and is only available from footnotes. The authors then include the level of financial analyst following in a cash flow model to study its impact on the cash flow predictive value of the earnings impact. Similarly, the level of financial analyst following is inserted in an earnings-return model to assess the effect of analyst coverage on the association between contemporaneous stock returns and earnings impact.FindingsThe authors find that the cash flow predictive value of the earnings impact shifts to the interaction between analyst coverage and the earnings impact, suggesting that the decision-usefulness of the earnings impact is conditioned on the level of analyst following. Nevertheless, the authors find that the earnings impact continues to have explanatory value for the contemporaneous stock returns, while the interaction between analyst coverage and the earnings impact does not. This finding suggests that the earnings impact is already fully reflected in stock prices regardless of analyst following.Research limitations/implicationsSince the estimation of the earnings impact from reporting operating leases as capital leases is based on the method developed by Imhoff et al. (1991), the results and inferences are thus constrained by the validity of the method.Practical implicationsThe authors find that financial analyst activities accelerate the incorporation of the earnings impact from operating lease capitalization in cash flow predictions, but it does not promote the impounding of the earnings impact into stock prices. This finding suggests that financial analysts' influence on the dissemination of the earnings impact hinges on the type of economic activity, and failing to consider the financial analyst following in studying the cash flow predictive value of the earnings impact would obscure the findings.Originality/valueThe authors extend the findings of prior research that financial analysts' activities promote the incorporation of firm-specific information into stock prices by investigating the impact of financial analysts on the dissemination of disclosed operating lease information.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Farooq ◽  
Harit Satt ◽  
Fatimazahra Bendriouch

PurposeThis paper aims to document the relationship between advertising expenditures and analyst coverage in a sample of Indian firms during the period between 2000 and 2019.Design/methodology/approachIn order to test the effect of advertising expenditures on the extent of analyst coverage, the authors estimate various versions of pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. The dependent variable (ANALYST) measures the total number of analysts covering a firm in a given year. The main independent variable of interest in this paper represents the advertising activity. The authors define the extent of advertising activity (ADVERT) as the ratio of total advertising expenditures and total assets.FindingsThe study’s results show that advertising expenditures have a significantly positive impact on the extent of analyst coverage and are robust across various proxies of the key variables and various estimation procedures.Practical implicationsThere are a number of key takeaways from our study. First, firms that expend more resources on advertising are more likely to be followed by analysts which is associated with better performance, lower information asymmetries associated and high advertising expenditures. Second, stock prices with more information embedded in them may signify that these firms receive more attention from investors and have lower information asymmetries. And finally the impact of advertising on the decision of an analyst to cover a firm becomes more pronounced for firms with high stock price synchronicity. All these three main conclusions are giving investors a clear insight on analyst coverage, advertising expenditure and the link between the two.Originality/valueThe results are consistent with the argument that advertising expenditures induces analysts to cover firms because firms with high advertising activities are more likely to have better performance, lower information asymmetries and increased attention from investors. All of these factors are supposed to facilitate the analyst coverage.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qazi S. Kabir ◽  
Kevin Watson ◽  
Theekshana Somaratna

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address a deficiency in the literature by exploring the impact of negative workplace safety announcements on firm performance. The authors analyze the issue from a corporate social responsibility perspective and explore ways supply chain managers can contribute to improve firm performance through the development of safe working environments. Design/methodology/approach Utilizing a sample of 227 negative workplace safety announcements, this paper explores the implications of negative workplace safety announcements on the stock price of a firm using event study methodology. Findings The authors find that negative workplace announcements are associated with an abnormal decrease in shareholder value. Furthermore, the authors find evidence that negative workplace safety announcements have a more pronounced negative effect on firm value in the present environment than in any previous time period. Practical implications Operations managers need to play leading roles in ensuring safe working environments. The results provide the support needed to acquire the financial resources necessary to mitigate exposure to unsafe working conditions. Originality/value This study explores the impact of negative workplace safety announcements on a firm’s stock performance. It is the first large-scale study to look at public announcements of workplace incidents and to explore the impact of such announcements in the context of time.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sulaiman Mouselli ◽  
Khaled Hussainey

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of a firm’s corporate governance (CG) mechanisms on the number of financial analysts following UK firms. The potential effect of the number of analysts following firms in the UK on the association between CG mechanisms and firm value was also examined. Design/methodology/approach – Multiple regression models were used to examine the association between CG, analyst coverage and firm value for a large sample of UK firms listed in London Stock Exchange with financial year ends between January 2003 and December 2008. Findings – It was found that the aggregate level of CG quality is positively associated with the number of analysts following UK firms. In addition, the compensation score is the main component that affects the number of analysts following UK firms. The results suggest that financial analysts are particularly concerned with how much compensation executives and directors receive. This is consistent with Jensen and Meckling (1976) who argue that chief executive officer (CEO) compensation can be used as effective mechanisms for mitigating agency costs. Hence, higher levels of CEO compensation attract more financial analysts to follow the firm. Surprisingly, when the joint effect of both CG quality and the number of analysts following on firm value was examined, no significant effect was found for both variables on firm value. Originality/value – This paper contributes to prior research by providing the first empirical evidence on the impact of disaggregated levels of CG on analyst following and firm value for a large sample of UK firms.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Liu ◽  
Bei Yang ◽  
Junrui Zhang

Purpose This paper aims to focus on the role of financial analysts in corporate fraud in the Chinese stock market. Design/methodology/approach Data on the analyst coverage and all the types of corporate fraud were obtained for 16,284 company-year observations of Chinese companies. The sample was subsequently divided into those of state-owned enterprises, before and after financial crisis. Findings The overall results indicate that analyst coverage effectively deters the occurrence of fraud. The sub-sample results suggest that the impact of analysts on deterring fraud is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises, especially after the financial crisis. The path analyses show that analyst coverage can deter corporate frauds by affecting information transparency and investor attention. Furthermore, the results show that the deterrence role of financial analysts varies with fraud types: it is more pronounced in deterring disclosure fraud, but not as effective in illegal guarantees and illegal insider dealing. Moreover, analyst coverage can deter the occurrence of fictitious reporting, intentional postponement and material omission. Originality/value This paper not only examined the overall fraud probability but also taking into consideration the heterogeneity of the information availability and research focus of financial analysts and examined the analysts’ impact on the occurrence of difference types of fraud. Moreover, this paper explored why financial analysts can deter corporate frauds through path analyses.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruopiao Zhang ◽  
Teresa Chu ◽  
Carlos Noronha ◽  
Jieqi Guan

PurposeThis study introduces Social Contribution Value per Share (SCVPS), an indicator devised by the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), as an easy-to-interpret Measurement of Corporate Social Performance (MCSP) to the international research arena. The authors first explore the informativeness role of voluntary disclosure of SCVPS in the stock market. The authors then go one step further to demonstrate the relationship between corporate value creation quantified by SCVPS and firm value.Design/methodology/approachThe study takes a new perspective – a quasi-natural experiment of SCVPS disclosure in 2008 and uses a Propensity Score Matched Difference in Difference model (PSM-DiD) to investigate the impact of SCVPS disclosure policy on stock price synchronization and firm value. Through manually recalculating all the values of SCVPS and its components, this study enables us to further investigate the relationship between corporate value creation for various stakeholders and firm value.FindingsThis study reveals that voluntary disclosure of SCVPS can signal firm-specific information to the market and reduce noise in returns, thus affecting stock price synchronization. The findings further demonstrate that such firm-specific information has value relevance to firm performance. Moreover, the authors demonstrate that corporate value creation for different stakeholders measured by SCVPS can significantly affect firm value. The moderating effects of ownership structures and industry types are also investigated, and an endogeneity test confirms the robustness of the findings.Practical implicationsThis study argues that SCVPS offers an economically viable way for firms, including small-and-medium-sized enterprises, in emerging economies to disclose corporate value creation and provide the public with a direct understanding and appreciation of the values created by corporations for stakeholders.Originality/valueThe result makes contributions to the MCSP literature and explores the informativeness of SCVPS disclosure. Besides, this paper demonstrates that SCVPS offers a good setting to explore the effect of corporate value creation on firm performance in an emerging market.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jingqin Zhang ◽  
Yong Ye

PurposeThis paper discusses whether institutional investors change the shareholding ratio of listed companies through research meeting, and whether this active investment mode can really improve the investment efficiency of institutional investors.Design/methodology/approachUsing empirical research method, this study designs and conducts an empirical research according to empirical research's basic norms. Thus, we acquire needed and credible empirical data. This study analyzes whether institutional investors seek their private interest in researched companies by analyzing their research meetings and the shareholding ratios of different types of institutional investors using Shenzhen Stock Exchange data on listed firms from 2014 to 2018.FindingsThis study finds that the research meetings of institutional investors provide participants with reliable information which supports the decision of institutional investors to change their shareholding ratio. The stock price growth rate strengthens the positive correlation between the research meetings of institutional investors and the shareholding ratio of institutional investors. Additionally, transactional institutional investors increase the shareholding ratio, while holding institutional investors do not.Originality/valueThis paper combines the behavior of institutional investors with the holding status of institutional investors, and discusses the impact of institutional investors' behavior on investment decisions. At the same time, it classifies the institutional investors and discusses the attitude of different types of institutional investors towards this active investment mode.


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