Mutual Fund Manager Forecasting Behavior
研究主动管理型开放式共同基金经理在发布股票推荐时同时公布的年度盈利预测，发现这些预测系统性地高估了最终披露的盈利数字，并进一步区分了市场操纵与乐观偏差两种解释，结果更支持乐观偏差。
I examine publicly released annual earnings forecasts issued in conjunction with stock recommendations by mutual fund managers of actively managed open‐end mutual funds. I find that mutual fund manager annual earnings forecasts systematically overestimate the earnings number later disclosed at the annual earnings announcement. In further analyses, I attempt to distinguish between two explanations for this forecast bias: an untruthful reporting bias (market manipulation) and a truthful cognitive bias (optimism). These explanations generate different predictions about the timing of changes in fundholdings of forecasted securities between the forecast release and annual earnings announcement dates. I interpret my findings as more consistent with an optimism explanation for mutual fund manager annual forecast bias and less consistent with a market manipulation explanation for this bias. I am, however, unable to eliminate an unobservable selection bias either in the decision of the mutual fund manager to report a forecast publicly or in the media’s decision to publish that forecast as an explanation for my finding that mutual fund manager forecasts are biased.