The study reported here is a comparison of the earnings-forecasting performance
of analysts at a large buy-side firm with the performance of sell-side analysts
in the 1997–2004 period. The tests show that the buy-side analysts made
more optimistic and less accurate forecasts than their counterparts on the sell
side. The performance differences appear to be partially explained by the
buy-side firm’s greater retention of poorly performing analysts and by
differences in the performance benchmarks used to evaluate buy-side and
sell-side analysts.