This study investigates the role of the business press in disseminating management earnings guidance news to capital market participants. Using a unique sample of over 55,000 articles that relate specifically to management guidance, I find that 48 percent of all guidance receives coverage in the business press, with substantial within-firm variation. I then identify firm and guidance characteristics that are associated with the likelihood that guidance receives press coverage. Controlling for the endogeneity of press coverage, I find that dissemination in the press has a significant impact on the market reaction to guidance, and this effect is economically large. This study is the first to provide evidence that there is systematic variation in the extent to which guidance news is disseminated through the press, and that this variation has a significant effect on the market consequences of guidance.

abstract: When managers provide earnings guidance, analysts normally respond within a short time frame with their own earnings forecasts. Within this setting, I investigate whether financial analysts use publicly available information to adjust for predictable error in management guidance and, if so, the explanation for such inefficiency. I provide evidence that analysts do not fully adjust for predictable guidance error when revising forecasts. The analyst inefficiency is attributed to analysts' attempts to advance relationship with the managers, analysts' compensation not tie to forecast accuracy, and their forecasting ability. Finally, the stock market acts as if it does not fully realize that analysts respond inefficiently to the guidance, introducing mispricing. This mispricing is not fully corrected upon earnings announcement. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Accountancy 2012

This study adds to the earnings guidance debate by investigating whether quarterly guidance is related to two forms of earnings management: (1) benchmark beating and (2) accounting irregularities. Using a post-Regulation Fair Disclosure sample, I find that firms regularly issuing earnings guidance display a discontinuity around zero in their distribution of management forecast errors and a larger discontinuity in their distribution of analyst forecast errors compared to non-guiding firms. Multivariate tests reveal that guiding firms recognize large abnormal accruals to beat their own guidance, but not to beat analyst forecasts, whereas non-guiding firms do recognize large abnormal accruals to beat analyst forecasts. Overall, guiding firms and non-guiding firms use similar levels of abnormal accruals to beat benchmarks. I also find no statistical relation between quarterly guidance and the likelihood of accounting irregularities. In sum, the evidence shows that while guiding firms and non-guiding firms manage earnings to different benchmarks, they are similar in terms of their aggregate earnings management.

abstract: While credit rating agencies use both forward-looking and historical information in evaluating a firm's credit risk, the role of forward-looking information in their rating decisions is not well understood. In this study, I examine the association between management earnings guidance news and future credit rating changes. While upward earnings guidance is not informative for credit rating changes, downward earnings guidance is significantly and positively associated with both the likelihood and speed of rating downgrades. In cross-sectional analyses, I find that downward guidance is especially informative in two important circumstances: (i) when a firm's current credit rating is overly optimistic compared to a model predicted rating, and (ii) when the relevance or reliability of alternative information sources is lower. In addition, I find that downward guidance is associated with lower future cash flows, as well as a higher volatility of future cash flows. Overall, the results are consistent with credit rating agencies incorporating voluntary bad news disclosures into their decisions about whether and when to downgrade a firm. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Accountancy 2015

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This dissertation examines the characterization of transient investors by financial analysts. Transient investors have been portrayed in the literature as either 1) informed investors or 2) poor monitors. No research to date, however, has examined how financial analysts, who are important information intermediaries, characterize transient investors. A view of transient investors through the lens of a financial analyst is obtained through examining how the presence of transient owners in a firm affects financial analysts' decision making. Specifically, this study examines how transient ownership affects both the propensity of analysts to herd when issuing earnings forecasts for a given firm as well as the incidence with which analysts revise their forecasts when the firm issues earnings guidance. Empirical tests show that financial analysts exhibit a greater propensity to herd when there are transient investors present. The proposed reason for this effect is analysts are herding due to reputational concerns. Further testing, however, does not show that the relation between transient ownership and analyst herding is owed to poor monitoring behavior of transient-owned firms. In contrast, evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that the firm information environment of transient-owned firms is an important cause of analyst herding. In summary, evidence is consistent with the informed investor portrayal of transient investors and there is no evidence indicating financial analysts view transient owners as poor monitors. Finally, when the decision of analysts to issue revised forecasts is examined, it is found that having a higher percentage of the firm owned by dedicated or long-term investors increased the propensity of analysts to issue a revised forecast. Thus, while my analysis is inconsistent with a poor monitoring portrayal of transient investors, results suggest that a dedicated investor base can enhance the perceived credibility of firm disclosures. / Ph. D.

This study examines whether earnings guidance contributes to investor short-termism -- excessive focus on a firm's short term performance and insufficient consideration of its long-term value creation potential. Using an adaptation of Ohlson's (1995) valuation model, I find that investors place significantly higher (lower) weight on short-term (long-term) earnings of quarterly guidance firms than on the corresponding earnings of non-guidance firms. Further tests indicate that the differential weighting cannot be fully explained by measurement errors, earnings properties, risk, or accuracy of analysts' forecasts. For a sample of guidance initiating firms, I find no differential valuations of firm value components before the initiation of guidance, but large differential valuations after guidance initiation. In contrast, for guidance discontinuation firms, I find that investors shift their focus from short-term to long-term earnings after the discontinuation of guidance. Together, the results support critics' claim that quarterly guidance contributes to short-term fixation in the market. / text