This study examines the effect of Regulation Fair Disclosure (FD) on the relevance of company-sponsored conference calls. Measuring relevance by a conference call's ability to improve analyst forecast accuracy and consensus, I find larger improvements in both variables during the period surrounding conference calls in the post-FD era versus the pre-FD era. These findings imply that in the post-FD era relatively more about a firm's upcoming earnings becomes known during conference calls, consistent with FD's success in eliminating selective disclosure.

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.

Using a uniquely hand-collected dataset, we examine how financial analysts react to expectations management in the post-Regulation Fair Disclosure (FD) period. We find evidence that management issues pessimistic public guidance to lower analysts' expectations to a beatable level in the new regulatory environment. Majority of the analysts revised their forecasts downward immediately (in terms of days rather than weeks) after the issuance of a pessimistic public guidance. The magnitude of the downward revision is significantly greater for firms that beat the expectations through managerial guidance than firms that beat the expectations without guidance. In addition, firms that beat analysts' expectations through pessimistic guidance are able to achieve a larger positive earnings surprise at the earnings announcement than the “legitimate beaters”

We examine management forecasts to determine whether Regulation Fair Disclosure has improved the quality and quantity of public disclosures. Management forecasts are voluntary, provide earnings guidance and are highly sought by investors and analysts. We find that the information disclosed by managers has improved in terms of frequency, specificity and verifiable information provided. We also find that Regulation Fair Disclosure has reduced information asymmetry, and information leakage prior to the release of the MEF. We find no evidence of greater returns volatility. Our results suggest that generally Regulation Fair Disclosure has achieved one of its stated goals of providing a more level playing field to all investors.

We examine whether Regulation FD has reduced the informativeness of analysts' information outputs. For a sample of financial analysts' earnings forecasts and recommendations released between October 23, 1999 and October 23, 2001, we show that in the post-Regulation period the absolute price impact of information disseminated by financial analysts is lower by 32%. We also show that the drop in price impact varies systematically with brokerage house and stock characteristics related to the level of selective disclosure prior to Reg FD. Based on the time-series and cross-sectional evidence we conclude Regulation FD has been effective in curtailing selective disclosure.

This paper reports evidence that Regulation Fair Disclosure has had its desired effect of reducing selective disclosure of information about future earnings to individual analysts without reducing the total amount of information disclosed. In particular, it finds that multi-forecast days, which typically follow public announcements or events, now account for over 70 percent of the new information about earnings, up from 35 percent before Reg FD. This result is obtained by applying a new methodology from Zitzewitz (2001a) for measuring the information content of individual forecasts. These results are strongest for the fourth quarter of 2000, when the SEC Chairman who introduced Reg FD was still in office; since the change in administration, some of the initial effects of Reg FD appear to have been reversed.