Financial Analyst Characteristics and Herding Behavior in Forecasting
将分析师的盈利预测分为羊群或大胆两类，发现大胆预测更可能来自过往准确、所在券商规模大、经验丰富的分析师，且大胆预测比羊群预测更准确，更能反映分析师私人信息。
ABSTRACT This study classifies analysts' earnings forecasts as herding or bold and finds that (1) boldness likelihood increases with the analyst's prior accuracy, brokerage size, and experience and declines with the number of industries the analyst follows, consistent with theory linking boldness with career concerns and ability; (2) bold forecasts are more accurate than herding forecasts; and (3) herding forecast revisions are more strongly associated with analysts' earnings forecast errors (actual earnings—forecast) than are bold forecast revisions. Thus, bold forecasts incorporate analysts' private information more completely and provide more relevant information to investors than herding forecasts.