Footnote:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments December 31, 2005 erstellt
Description:
The main objective of the paper is to examine the market reaction to the reports issued by financial analysts in the Italian Stock Exchange, and to define the informative contribution embedded on them as well as their investment value. We use a unique dataset that includes all the reports on IPOs in the Italian stock market and analyze the impact of the recommendation changes calculating abnormal returns and abnormal volumes associated with the dissemination of the report. Prices and volumes are influenced by recommendation changes in a statistically significantly manner, while abnormal returns and volumes in case of upgrades or downgrade are symmetrical and of almost the same magnitude, testifying, at least to a certain extent, the forecasting ability of the analyst and the informative value of the reports. Abnormal returns and volumes are present even before the official dissemination of the report to the market, but also before the report date, i.e. the one in which the report should be given to the private clients of the analysts. It is possible to advance two main hypotheses to explain this evidence. First, the market is not fully informationally efficient, because of leakage of information or by insider trading; second: it is possible that other important price sensitive news had preceded the diffusion of the report, that, in this case, would have reported in his evaluation just the new information on the company