Stock analysts accentuate the negative so firms can achieve more positives, study finds
A new study involving two Olin Business School researchers finds that analysts disseminate earnings news by revising share-price targets or stating they expect firms to beat earnings estimates, often tempering such information — even suppressing positive news — to facilitate beatable projections.
Setting analysts straight
It’s been two years since New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer’s crackdown on the securities industry spawned the “Global Analyst Research Settlement.” Spitzer targeted analysts and bankers from the same company for getting a little too cozy with each other. Recently, two professors from Washington University in St. Louis’s Olin School of Business released a report indicating that the Global Settlement is successfully eliminating the apparent conflict of interest.