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Analyst Earnings Forecasts for Publicly Traded Insurance Companies

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Author Info
Dennis Fan
Raymond So ()
Jason Yeh
Abstract

Several trends in the insurance and financial services industry, including demutualizationconsolidation, and deregulation, have attracted increasing attention from investors and financial analysts. This paper investigates the accuracy of the earnings forecasts of financial analysts for insurance companies. Our empirical results indicate that analyst forecasts outperform random walk time-series forecasts. Furthermore, we find that both disagreement over earnings forecasts among analysts and the relative forecasting error in the mean forecasts is smaller for life insurers than for property-casualty insurers, whereas the relative errors for forecasts for multiple-line insurers are in between the two. Forecasting error is a negative function of firm size and the number of analysts who are following a company, and is a positive function of the disagreement among analysts.Analyst forecasts have a timing advantage over the random walk model. Our results also suggest that the fair value reporting requirement (SFAS 115), which has been in effect since 1994, has enhanced the accuracy of analyst forecasts. The SFAS 115 has improved the superiority of analyst forecasts over the random walk forecasts for life insurers, but not for property-casualty insurers, and there is a weak improvement for multiple-line insurers. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2006

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Article provided by Springer in its journal Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting.

Volume (Year): 26 (2006)
Issue (Month): 2 (March)
Pages: 105-136
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Handle: RePEc:kap:rqfnac:v:26:y:2006:i:2:p:105-136

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Web page: http://springerlink.metapress.com/link.asp?id=102990

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Keywords: analyst forecasts; insurance companies; fair value reporting;

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Brown, Lawrence D., 1993. "Earnings forecasting research: its implications for capital markets research," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 295-320, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Conroy, Robert & Harris, Robert S. & Park, Young S., 1993. "Published analysts' earnings forecasts in Japan: how accurate are they?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 127-137, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Lamm-Tennant, Joan & Starks, Laura T, 1993. "Stock versus Mutual Ownership Structures: The Risk Implications," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(1), pages 29-46, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Jennifer J. Gaver & Steven W. Pottier, 2005. "The Role of Holding Company Financial Information in the Insurer-Rating Process: Evidence From the Property-Liability Industry," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 72(1), pages 77-103. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Fried, Dov & Givoly, Dan, 1982. "Financial analysts' forecasts of earnings : A better surrogate for market expectations," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 85-107, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Brennan, Michael J & Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Swaminathan, Bhaskaran, 1993. "Investment Analysis and the Adjustment of Stock Prices to Common Information," Review of Financial Studies, Oxford University Press for Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(4), pages 799-824. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Brown, Lawrence D. & Hagerman, Robert L. & Griffin, Paul A. & Zmijewski, Mark E., 1987. "Security analyst superiority relative to univariate time-series models in forecasting quarterly earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 61-87, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Womack, Kent L, 1996. " Do Brokerage Analysts' Recommendations Have Investment Value?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 137-67, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Mikhail, Michael B. & Walther, Beverly R. & Willis, Richard H., 2003. "The effect of experience on security analyst underreaction," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 101-116, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Abarbanell, Jeffery S. & Lanen, William N. & Verrecchia, Robert E., 1995. "Analysts' forecasts as proxies for investor beliefs in empirical research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 31-60, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Kothari, S. P., 2001. "Capital markets research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 105-231, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Zhaoyang Gu & Jian Xue, 2007. "Do analysts overreact to extreme good news in earnings?," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 415-431, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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