This research will concentrate on the changes in earnings forecasts, forecast accuracy and forecast dispersion for growth and value stocks after Reg FD. Each topic is presented in a separate essay. The first essay tests if growth and value stock returns respond more to forecasted earnings changes than they do to changes in earnings and whether these stock returns respond in a different fashion before and after Reg FD. This phenomenon is stronger for growth stock portfolio strategies than it is for value stock portfolios. After Reg FD, the overall impact of earnings expectations on stock returns is smaller, especially for growth stock returns. The second essay examines financial analysts' earnings forecast accuracy in value and growth stocks before and after the introduction of Reg FD. Accuracy for both stock groups (value and growth stocks) has improved after the introduction of Reg FD. The results in this essay provide additional evidence indicating that analysts did not just misinterpret available news but consciously tried to maintain relationships with managers. However, Reg FD efficiently limited these relationships between managers of growth firms and analysts so that the monetary advantage from manipulating earnings forecasts before the introduction of Reg FD no longer exists. The third essay evaluates the hypothesis stating that forecast dispersion, on both growth and value stock returns, has increased after the introduction Reg FD. However, the increased dispersion found at the second quarter of 2001 drastically dissipates at the second quarter of 2002, although value stock forecast dispersion before earnings announcement and value stock belief jumbling remain higher. The results in this essay suggest that corporate voluntary disclosure created a greater variety of opinions and, therefore, more uncertainty about value stocks. Also, value stock returns have a stronger inverse relationship with dispersion because financial analysts have become more uncertain about value firms' performance. The bigger the disagreement about a stock's value, the higher the market price relative to the true value of the stock, and the lower its future return.

Today's Most Easy-to-Understand Introduction to Value Investing--How It Works, and How to Make It Work for You Lawrence Cunningham is one of today's leading authorities on value investing. What Is Value Investing? provides you with the knowledge and tools you need to make value investing a profitable part of your financial strategy. It explains how to: Measure the true value of a stock, not the value given to it by an emotion-driven marketplace Uncover and avoid companies that look impressive but hide serious problems Invest only in companies that fall within your "circle of competence"--products and companies you truly understand Use the eight key rules of value investing to screen every stock for value before you add it to your portfolio Value investors don't simply buy low-priced shares; they invest in solid, proven companies. What is Value Investing? will give you the knowledge to become a successful value investor who insists on investing only in high-quality, time-proven companies and getting them for pennies on the dollar. Lawrence Cunningham is a professor of law and business at Boston College. The author of Outsmarting the Smart Money and How to Think Like Benjamin Graham and Invest Like Warren Buffett, Professor Cunningham has been featured in publications from Forbes to Money and on networks including CNBC, CNN, and PBS.

Financial Analysts' Forecasts and Stock Recommendations reviews research related to the role of financial analysts in the allocation of resources in capital markets. The authors provide an organized look at the literature, with particular attention to important questions that remain open for further research. They focus research related to analysts' decision processes and the usefulness of their forecasts and stock recommendations. Some of the major surveys were published in the early 1990's and since then no less than 250 papers related to financial analysts have appeared in the nine major research journals that we used to launch our review of the literature. The research has evolved from descriptions of the statistical properties of analysts' forecasts to investigations of the incentives and decision processes that give rise to those properties. However, in spite of this broader focus, much of analysts' decision processes and the market's mechanism of drawing a useful consensus from the combination of individual analysts' decisions remain hidden in a black box. What do we know about the relevant valuation metrics and the mechanism by which analysts and investors translate forecasts into present equity values? What do we know about the heuristics relied upon by analysts and the market and the appropriateness of their use? Financial Analysts' Forecasts and Stock Recommendations examines these and other questions and concludes by highlighting area for future research.

The cash flows of growth stocks are particularly sensitive to temporary movements in aggregate stock prices (driven by movements in the equity risk premium), while the cash flows of value stocks are particularly sensitive to permanent movements in aggregate stock prices (driven by market-wide shocks to cash flows.) Thus the high betas of growth stocks with the market's discount-rate shocks, and of value stocks with the market's cash-flow shocks, are determined by the cash-flow fundamentals of growth and value companies. Growth stocks are not merely "glamour stocks" whose systematic risks are purely driven by investor sentiment. More generally, accounting measures of firm-level risk have predictive power for firms' betas with market-wide cash flows, and this predictive power arises from the behavior of firms' cash flows. The systematic risks of stocks with similar accounting characteristics are primarily driven by the systematic risks of their fundamentals.

Investment pioneer Len Zacks presents the latest academic research on how to beat the market using equity anomalies The Handbook of Equity Market Anomalies organizes and summarizes research carried out by hundreds of finance and accounting professors over the last twenty years to identify and measure equity market inefficiencies and provides self-directed individual investors with a framework for incorporating the results of this research into their own investment processes. Edited by Len Zacks, CEO of Zacks Investment Research, and written by leading professors who have performed groundbreaking research on specific anomalies, this book succinctly summarizes the most important anomalies that savvy investors have used for decades to beat the market. Some of the anomalies addressed include the accrual anomaly, net stock anomalies, fundamental anomalies, estimate revisions, changes in and levels of broker recommendations, earnings-per-share surprises, insider trading, price momentum and technical analysis, value and size anomalies, and several seasonal anomalies. This reliable resource also provides insights on how to best use the various anomalies in both market neutral and in long investor portfolios. A treasure trove of investment research and wisdom, the book will save you literally thousands of hours by distilling the essence of twenty years of academic research into eleven clear chapters and providing the framework and conviction to develop market-beating strategies. Strips the academic jargon from the research and highlights the actual returns generated by the anomalies, and documented in the academic literature Provides a theoretical framework within which to understand the concepts of risk adjusted returns and market inefficiencies Anomalies are selected by Len Zacks, a pioneer in the field of investing As the founder of Zacks Investment Research, Len Zacks pioneered the concept of the earnings-per-share surprise in 1982 and developed the Zacks Rank, one of the first anomaly-based stock selection tools. Today, his firm manages U.S. equities for individual and institutional investors and provides investment software and investment data to all types of investors. Now, with his new book, he shows you what it takes to build a quant process to outperform an index based on academically documented market inefficiencies and anomalies.

John J. Murphy has updated his landmark bestseller Technical Analysis of the Futures Markets, to include all of the financial markets. This outstanding reference has already taught thousands of traders the concepts of technical analysis and their application in the futures and stock markets. Covering the latest developments in computer technology, technical tools, and indicators, the second edition features new material on candlestick charting, intermarket relationships, stocks and stock rotation, plus state-of-the-art examples and figures. From how to read charts to understanding indicators and the crucial role technical analysis plays in investing, readers gain a thorough and accessible overview of the field of technical analysis, with a special emphasis on futures markets. Revised and expanded for the demands of today's financial world, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in tracking and analyzing market behavior.