IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/acctbr/v32y2002i3p153-170.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

UK brokers' characteristics: does size matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Simon Hussain

Abstract

This study provides one of the first insights into how UK brokers' institutional characteristics may impact on the forecasting performance of their financial analysts. The study focuses on brokerage house size and finds it to be a significant factor explaining cross sectional variation in forecasting performance. This is consistent with evidence from several recent US studies (Jacob et al. 1997; Clement, 1999). It is likely that this broker-size effect reflects the resources (human, IT) available to brokers' analysts to support them in their activities. It may also reflect larger brokers' superior access to company managers and information. However, this broker-size effect appears to be significant only for forecasts made at horizons of one year or less. The sign of the earnings change being predicted also has a significant impact: for observations where earnings changes are negative, the broker-size effect is larger than for positive changes, though the effect is significant for both cases. In addition, the form of the model employed here suggests diminishing marginal returns to broker size. More generally, this study reiterates the importance of controlling for the most commonly cited explanatory variables for forecast accuracy, and there is evidence that the heavy industry sectors may be more difficult to forecast, echoing the conclusions of UK studies from the 1980s.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon Hussain, 2002. "UK brokers' characteristics: does size matter?," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 153-170.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:acctbr:v:32:y:2002:i:3:p:153-170
    DOI: 10.1080/00014788.2002.9728965
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00014788.2002.9728965
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00014788.2002.9728965?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mikhail, MB & Walther, BR & Willis, RH, 1997. "Do security analysts improve their performance with experience?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35, pages 131-157.
    2. Clement, Michael B., 1999. "Analyst forecast accuracy: Do ability, resources, and portfolio complexity matter?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 285-303, July.
    3. Butler, Kc & Lang, Lhp, 1991. "The Forecast Accuracy Of Individual Analysts - Evidence Of Systematic Optimism And Pessimism," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 150-156.
    4. Bhushan, Ravi, 1989. "Firm characteristics and analyst following," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2-3), pages 255-274, July.
    5. Moyer, R. Charles & Chatfield, Robert E. & Sisneros, Phillip M., 1989. "Security Analyst Monitoring Activity: Agency Costs and Information Demands," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(4), pages 503-512, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Beattie, Vivien, 2005. "Moving the financial accounting research front forward: the UK contribution," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 85-114.
    2. Al-Aamri, Ibrahim & Hussain, Simon & Su, Chen & Hsu, Hwa-Hsien, 2022. "The importance of brokerage house size in determining the utility of IFRS8 segment data to financial analysts," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barniv, Ran, 2009. "Does foreign investor demand for information affect forecast accuracy? Evidence from the Chinese stock markets," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 101-118.
    2. Ting Chen & Xiumin Martin, 2011. "Do Bank‐Affiliated Analysts Benefit from Lending Relationships?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(3), pages 633-675, June.
    3. Sinha, Rajesh Kumar, 2021. "Macro disagreement and analyst forecast properties," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    4. Yu, Fang (Frank), 2008. "Analyst coverage and earnings management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 245-271, May.
    5. Rani Hoitash & Udi Hoitash & Ari Yezegel, 2021. "Can sell-side analysts’ experience, expertise and qualifications help mitigate the adverse effects of accounting reporting complexity?," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 859-897, October.
    6. Yi Dong & Nan Hu & Xu Li & Ling Liu, 2017. "Analyst Firm Coverage and Forecast Accuracy: The Effect of Regulation Fair Disclosure," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 53(4), pages 450-484, December.
    7. Amitabh Dugar & Siva Nathan, 1995. "The Effect of Investment Banking Relationships on Financial Analysts' Earnings Forecasts and Investment Recommendations," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(1), pages 131-160, September.
    8. Sean Cleary & Jonathan Jona & Gladys Lee & Joshua Shemesh, 2020. "Underlying risk preferences and analyst risk‐taking behavior," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(7-8), pages 949-981, July.
    9. Ayres, Douglas & Huang, Xuerong (Sharon) & Myring, Mark, 2017. "Fair value accounting and analyst forecast accuracy," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 58-70.
    10. Altınkılıç, Oya & Balashov, Vadim S. & Hansen, Robert S., 2019. "Investment bank monitoring and bonding of security analysts’ research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 98-119.
    11. Erik Devos & Seow Ong & Andrew Spieler, 2007. "Analyst Activity and Firm Value: Evidence from the REIT Sector," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 333-356, October.
    12. Derann Hsu & Cheng-Huei Chiao, 2011. "Relative accuracy of analysts’ earnings forecasts over time: a Markov chain analysis," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 37(4), pages 477-507, November.
    13. Mozes, Haim A., 2003. "Accuracy, usefulness and the evaluation of analysts' forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 417-434.
    14. Dang, Chongyu & Foerster, Stephen & Li, Zhichuan (Frank) & Tang, Zhenyang, 2021. "Analyst talent, information, and insider trading," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    15. Beyer, Anne & Cohen, Daniel A. & Lys, Thomas Z. & Walther, Beverly R., 2010. "The financial reporting environment: Review of the recent literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 296-343, December.
    16. Hueiling Chen & Cheng-Tsu Huang & Hsiou-Wei W. Lin, 2016. "Changes in analyst following for less covered firms accompanying Regulation Fair Disclosure: the roles of ability and industry experience," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 519-541, April.
    17. Lobo, Gerald J. & Song, Minsup & Stanford, Mary, 2012. "Accruals quality and analyst coverage," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 497-508.
    18. Corredor, Pilar & Ferrer, Elena & Santamaria, Rafael, 2019. "The role of sentiment and stock characteristics in the translation of analysts’ forecasts into recommendations," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 252-272.
    19. Sung Hwan Jung, 2017. "The contingent effect of analyst coverage: how does analyst coverage affect innovation and Tobin’s Q?," Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting & Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1-2), pages 43-67, April.
    20. Emmanuel Mamatzakis & Anna Bagntasarian, 2021. "The nexus between CEO incentives and analysts' earnings forecasts," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(4), pages 6205-6248, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:acctbr:v:32:y:2002:i:3:p:153-170. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RABR20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.