What Factors Drive Analyst Forecasts?

Using survey data to judge how analyst forecasts are related to evaluations of companies’ industry competitiveness, strategic choices, and internal capabilities, the authors found that analyst forecasts are associated with many of the factors that money managers rate as important in their assessments of analyst contributions. They also found wide variation in ratings consistency across variables among analysts covering the same company. On average, consistency is higher for sell-side analysts than for buy-side analysts.