Uncertainty and Financial Analysts' Overconfidence

Uncertainty and Financial Analysts' Overconfidence PDF Author: Véronique Bessière
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 23

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Book Description
This article examines the link between uncertainty and analysts' reaction to earnings announcements for a sample of European firms during the period 1997-2007. In the same way as Daniel et al. (1998), we posit that overconfidence leads to an overreaction to private information followed by an undereaction when the information becomes public. Psychological findings suggest that this effect is more prominent in an uncertain environment. Our tests are based on the relationship between forecast revisions and forecast errors. When analysts excessively integrate information in their revisions (i.e. overreact), their forecast revisions are too intense, and the converse occurs when they underreact. We implement a portfolio analysis and a regression analysis for two subsamples: high-tech and low-tech, as a proxy for uncertainty. Our results support the overconfidence hypothesis. We jointly observe the two phenomena of under- and overreaction. Overreaction occurs when the information has not yet been made public and disappears just after public release. Our results also show that both effects are stronger for the high-tech subsample. For robustness, we sort the sample using analyst forecast dispersion as a proxy for uncertainty and obtain similar results. We also document that the high-tech stocks crash in 2000-2001 moderated analysts' overconfidence.

Uncertainty and Financial Analysts' Overconfidence

Uncertainty and Financial Analysts' Overconfidence PDF Author: Véronique Bessière
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 23

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Book Description
This article examines the link between uncertainty and analysts' reaction to earnings announcements for a sample of European firms during the period 1997-2007. In the same way as Daniel et al. (1998), we posit that overconfidence leads to an overreaction to private information followed by an undereaction when the information becomes public. Psychological findings suggest that this effect is more prominent in an uncertain environment. Our tests are based on the relationship between forecast revisions and forecast errors. When analysts excessively integrate information in their revisions (i.e. overreact), their forecast revisions are too intense, and the converse occurs when they underreact. We implement a portfolio analysis and a regression analysis for two subsamples: high-tech and low-tech, as a proxy for uncertainty. Our results support the overconfidence hypothesis. We jointly observe the two phenomena of under- and overreaction. Overreaction occurs when the information has not yet been made public and disappears just after public release. Our results also show that both effects are stronger for the high-tech subsample. For robustness, we sort the sample using analyst forecast dispersion as a proxy for uncertainty and obtain similar results. We also document that the high-tech stocks crash in 2000-2001 moderated analysts' overconfidence.

Does Uncertainty Boost Overconfidence? The Case of Financial Analysts' Forecasts

Does Uncertainty Boost Overconfidence? The Case of Financial Analysts' Forecasts PDF Author: Véronique Bessière
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 1

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Book Description
This article examines the link between uncertainty and analysts' reaction to earnings announcements for a sample of European firms during the period 1997-2007. In the same way as Daniel, Hirshleifer and Subrahmanyam (1998), we posit that overconfidence leads to an overreaction to private information followed by an underreaction when the information becomes public. Psychological findings suggest that this effect is more prominent in an uncertain environment. Our tests are based on the relationship between forecast revisions and forecast errors. When analysts excessively integrate information in their revisions (i.e. overreact), their forecast revisions are too intense, and the converse occurs when they underreact. As a proxy for uncertainty we analyze two subsamples: high-tech and low-tech firms. Our results support the overconfidence hypothesis. We jointly observe the two phenomena of under- and overreaction. Overreaction occurs before the public release and disappears after it. Our results also show that both effects are more significant for the high-tech subsample. For robustness, we sort the sample using analyst forecast dispersion as a proxy for uncertainty and obtain similar results. We also document the fact that the high-tech stock crash in 2000-2001 moderated analysts' overconfidence.

Corporate Disclosure, Information Uncertainty and Investors' Behavior

Corporate Disclosure, Information Uncertainty and Investors' Behavior PDF Author: Véronique Bessière
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 18

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Book Description
This article examines the link between uncertainty and investors' reaction to goodwill write-offs (GWWOs) for a sample of French firms during the period 2001- 2004. Our theoretical setting is derived from Daniel, Hirshleifer and Subrahmanyam (1998, hereafter DHS98) who posit that overconfidence leads to an overreaction to private information, followed by too little adjustments when the information becomes public and then a long adjustment which reduce slowly the mispricing in the long run. We consider three proxies for uncertainty - stock return volatility, analyst coverage and dispersion in analyst forecasts - and sort two samples of GWWOs according to the level of uncertainty. Our results confirm DHS98 model and, indirectly, that overconfidence is boosted by uncertainty. We identify a particular corporate event - here a bad signal: goodwill write-offs - and a particular context - high uncertainty - that fit DHS98 model, allowing private information prospecting, overconfidence in this information and arbitrage obstacles. Our tests confirm the overconfidence effect on investors' reaction: the high-uncertainty sample is characterized by strongly negative abnormal returns during the period preceding GWWOs announcement, associated with high volatility. At the announcement date, negative abnormal returns are observed in line with the self-attribution bias effect (the overreaction is strengthened by a confirming signal). The overreaction to private information is corrected in the long run, where we observe positive abnormal returns, creating a reversal. No abnormal returns are observed for the low-uncertainty sample. This study offers interesting insights in two ways: (i) in the area of financial markets and efficiency, it provides a test of a major over- and under-reaction model, (ii) in the area of corporate finance and accounting, it helps to explain investors' reaction to corporate financial disclosure according to a theoretical approach of information process and inference.

Overconfidence in Financial Markets and Consumption Over the Life Cycle

Overconfidence in Financial Markets and Consumption Over the Life Cycle PDF Author: Frank Caliendo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Overconfidence is a widely documented phenomenon. Empirical evidence reveal two types of overconfidence in financial markets: investors both overestimate the average rate of return to their assets and underestimate uncertainty associated with the return. This paper explores implications of overconfidence in financial markets for consumption over the life cycle. The authors obtain a closed-form solution to the time-inconsistent problem facing an overconfident investor/consumer who has a CRRA utility function. They use this solution to show that overestimation of the mean return gives rise to a hump in consumption during the work life if and only if the elasticity of intertemporal substitution in consumption is less than unit. They find that underestimation of uncertainty has little effect on the long-run average behavior of consumption over the work life. Their calibrated model produces a hump-shaped work-life consumption profile with both the age and the amplitude of peak consumption consistent with empirical observations.

Policy Uncertainty and Analyst Performance

Policy Uncertainty and Analyst Performance PDF Author: Vishal P. Baloria
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 51

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Book Description
Motivated by recent high-profile instances of policy uncertainty in the U.S., this study examines whether policy uncertainty affects the forecasting performance of financial analysts. We conjecture that policy uncertainty increases the complexity of the forecasting task for analysts, resulting in less accurate earnings forecasts. We find robust evidence that forecast accuracy decreases in the presence of policy uncertainty. We also document that the negative association between forecast accuracy and policy uncertainty is more pronounced when policy uncertainty is particularly high and when firms are more sensitive to policy uncertainty. Given the importance of the intermediation role played by financial analysts, these findings have implications for understanding factors that affect information dissemination in capital markets.

Uncertainty and Investment

Uncertainty and Investment PDF Author: Stephen Bond
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Capital investments
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Book Description


Inefficient Markets

Inefficient Markets PDF Author: Andrei Shleifer
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191606898
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
The efficient markets hypothesis has been the central proposition in finance for nearly thirty years. It states that securities prices in financial markets must equal fundamental values, either because all investors are rational or because arbitrage eliminates pricing anomalies. This book describes an alternative approach to the study of financial markets: behavioral finance. This approach starts with an observation that the assumptions of investor rationality and perfect arbitrage are overwhelmingly contradicted by both psychological and institutional evidence. In actual financial markets, less than fully rational investors trade against arbitrageurs whose resources are limited by risk aversion, short horizons, and agency problems. The book presents and empirically evaluates models of such inefficient markets. Behavioral finance models both explain the available financial data better than does the efficient markets hypothesis and generate new empirical predictions. These models can account for such anomalies as the superior performance of value stocks, the closed end fund puzzle, the high returns on stocks included in market indices, the persistence of stock price bubbles, and even the collapse of several well-known hedge funds in 1998. By summarizing and expanding the research in behavioral finance, the book builds a new theoretical and empirical foundation for the economic analysis of real-world markets.

A Behavioral Approach to Asset Pricing

A Behavioral Approach to Asset Pricing PDF Author: Hersh Shefrin
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080482244
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 636

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Book Description
Behavioral finance is the study of how psychology affects financial decision making and financial markets. It is increasingly becoming the common way of understanding investor behavior and stock market activity. Incorporating the latest research and theory, Shefrin offers both a strong theory and efficient empirical tools that address derivatives, fixed income securities, mean-variance efficient portfolios, and the market portfolio. The book provides a series of examples to illustrate the theory. The second edition continues the tradition of the first edition by being the one and only book to focus completely on how behavioral finance principles affect asset pricing, now with its theory deepened and enriched by a plethora of research since the first edition

Uncertain Futures

Uncertain Futures PDF Author: Jens Beckert
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192552740
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Uncertain Futures considers how economic actors visualize the future and decide how to act in conditions of radical uncertainty. It starts from the premise that dynamic capitalist economies are characterized by relentless innovation and novelty and hence exhibit an indeterminacy that cannot be reduced to measurable risk. The organizing question then becomes how economic actors form expectations and make decisions despite the uncertainty they face. This edited volume lays the foundations for a new model of economic reasoning by showing how, in conditions of uncertainty, economic actors combine calculation with imaginaries and narratives to form fictional expectations that coordinate action and provide the confidence to act. It draws on groundbreaking research in economic sociology, economics, anthropology, and psychology to present theoretically grounded empirical case studies. These demonstrate how grand narratives, central bank forward guidance, economic forecasts, finance models, business plans, visions of technological futures, and new era stories influence behaviour and become instruments of power in markets and societies. The market impact of shared calculative devices, social narratives, and contingent imaginaries underlines the rationale for a new form of narrative economics.

Prior Uncertainty, Analyst Bias, and Subsequent Abnormal Returns

Prior Uncertainty, Analyst Bias, and Subsequent Abnormal Returns PDF Author: Lucy F. Ackert
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
In this paper, we examine the relation between analysts' over-optimism and uncertainty as proxied by the standard deviation of earnings forecasts. We find a positive relation between over-optimism and uncertainty, but very little or no optimism when uncertainty is low. If the uncertainty surrounding a firm is high, analysts have fewer reputational concerns when they act on their inclinations to issue optimistic forecasts. Portfolio strategies based on these findings generate abnormal returns. The results suggest that greater prior uncertainty leads to higher analyst optimism, which in turn causes market overvaluation and profitable portfolio strategies.