The Effect of Fair Value Versus Historical Cost Reporting Model on Analyst Forecast Accuracy

The Effect of Fair Value Versus Historical Cost Reporting Model on Analyst Forecast Accuracy
Author: Lihong Liang
Publisher:
Total Pages: 49
Release: 2013
Genre:
ISBN:

This paper examines how the reporting model for a firm's operating assets affects analyst forecast accuracy. We contrast UK and US investment property firms having real estate as their primary operating asset, exploiting that UK (US) firms report these assets at fair value (historical cost). We assess the accuracy of a balance sheet-based forecast (net asset value, or NAV) and an income statement-based forecast (earnings-per-share, or EPS). We predict and find higher NAV forecast accuracy for UK relative to US firms, consistent with the fair value reporting model revealing private information that is incorporated into analysts' balance sheet forecasts. We find this difference is attenuated when the fair value and historical cost models are more likely to converge: during recessionary periods. Finally, we predict and find lower EPS forecast accuracy for UK firms when reporting under the full fair value model of IFRS, in which unrealized fair value gains and losses are included in net income. This is consistent with the full fair value model increasing the difficulty of forecasting net income through the inclusion of non-serially correlated elements such as these gains/losses. Information content analyses provide further support for these inferences. Overall, the results indicate that the fair value reporting model enhances analysts' ability to forecast the balance sheet, but the full fair value model reduces their ability to forecast net income.

Financial Analysts' Forecasts and Stock Recommendations

Financial Analysts' Forecasts and Stock Recommendations
Author: Sundaresh Ramnath
Publisher: Now Publishers Inc
Total Pages: 125
Release: 2008
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1601981627

Financial Analysts' Forecasts and Stock Recommendations reviews research related to the role of financial analysts in the allocation of resources in capital markets. The authors provide an organized look at the literature, with particular attention to important questions that remain open for further research. They focus research related to analysts' decision processes and the usefulness of their forecasts and stock recommendations. Some of the major surveys were published in the early 1990's and since then no less than 250 papers related to financial analysts have appeared in the nine major research journals that we used to launch our review of the literature. The research has evolved from descriptions of the statistical properties of analysts' forecasts to investigations of the incentives and decision processes that give rise to those properties. However, in spite of this broader focus, much of analysts' decision processes and the market's mechanism of drawing a useful consensus from the combination of individual analysts' decisions remain hidden in a black box. What do we know about the relevant valuation metrics and the mechanism by which analysts and investors translate forecasts into present equity values? What do we know about the heuristics relied upon by analysts and the market and the appropriateness of their use? Financial Analysts' Forecasts and Stock Recommendations examines these and other questions and concludes by highlighting area for future research.

New Determinants of Analysts’ Earnings Forecast Accuracy

New Determinants of Analysts’ Earnings Forecast Accuracy
Author: Tanja Klettke
Publisher: Springer Science & Business
Total Pages: 120
Release: 2014-04-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3658056347

Financial analysts provide information in their research reports and thereby help forming expectations of a firm’s future business performance. Thus, it is essential to recognize analysts who provide the most precise forecasts and the accounting literature identifies characteristics that help finding the most accurate analysts. Tanja Klettke detects new relationships and identifies two new determinants of earnings forecast accuracy. These new determinants are an analyst’s “general forecast effort” and the “number of supplementary forecasts”. Within two comprehensive empirical investigations she proves these measures’ power to explain accuracy differences. Tanja Klettke’s research helps investors and researchers to identify more accurate earnings forecasts.