Long-Term Earnings Growth Forecasts, Limited Attention, and Return Predictability

• Main Authors: WARACHKA, Mitchell Craig, Da, Z.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2008
• Subjects: Analyst Forecasts; Limited Attention; Return Predictability; Finance and Financial Management; Portfolio and Security Analysis
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/1565
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Long-term earnings expectations are critically important to stock price valuations. We identify relative optimism and relative pessimism in long-term analyst forecasts by comparing these forecasts with implied short-term earnings growth forecasts across firms within the same industry. Stocks with relatively optimistic and relatively pessimistic long-term analyst forecasts have negative and positive risk-adjusted returns, respectively. This return predictability depends critically on short-term forecasts since relative optimism and relative pessimism originate from the slow diffusion of information from short-term to long-term analyst forecasts. Our results indicate that market participants have limited attention regarding the long-term earnings implications of information.