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  • September 2020
  • Article
  • Management Science

Analyst Forecast Bundling

By: Michael Drake, Peter Joos, Joseph Pacelli and Brady Twedt
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Abstract

Changing economic conditions over the past two decades have created incentives for sell-side analysts to both provide their institutional clients tiered services and to streamline their written research process. One manifestation of these changes is an increased likelihood of analysts issuing earnings forecasts for multiple firms on the same day. We identify this bundling property and show that bundling has increased steadily over time. We provide field evidence that the practice is a cost-saving measure, a natural by-product of analysts focusing on thematic research, and a reflection of forecast updating that occurs in advance of important events. Our empirical analyses show that bundled forecasts are less accurate, less bold, and less informative to investors than nonbundled forecasts. We also find that analysts who produce bundled forecasts provide valuable specialized services to their institutional clients. Our findings ultimately demonstrate that forecast bundling has important implications for the properties of analysts’ forecasts.

Keywords

Analysts; Earnings Forecasts; Forecast Accuracy; Forecast Bundling; Business Earnings; Forecasting and Prediction

Citation

Drake, Michael, Peter Joos, Joseph Pacelli, and Brady Twedt. "Analyst Forecast Bundling." Management Science 66, no. 9 (September 2020): 4024–4046.
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About The Author

Joseph Pacelli

Accounting and Management
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More from the Authors
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  • Dirty Money: How Banks Influence Financial Crime By: Joseph Pacelli, Janet Gao, Jan Schneemeier and Yufeng Wu
  • Does the Freedom of Information Act Foil the Securities and Exchange Commission's Intent to Keep Investigations Confidential? By: Braiden Coleman, Kenneth Merkley, Brian Miller and Joseph Pacelli
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