负面信息披露与分析师乐观预测之谜:信息决策还是经济利益?

The Puzzle on The Relationship of Bad News Disclosure and Analysts Optimistic Forecasts:Information-Decision or Interest-Conflict View

上市公司违规处罚这一负面信息披露到底对投资者产生了正向还是负向影响,已有研究并未得到一致的结论。本文从证券分析师预测行为入手,考察违规处罚对专业机构的影响,以期对该争议提供新的经验证据。研究发现,证券分析师对那些违规处罚的公司做出了乐观的盈余预测和股票评级,理论上预期这一结果可以从信息决策假说和经济利益假说进行解释,但实证检验的结果排除了经济利益假说,支持了信息决策假说。即,证券分析师对违规处罚公司出具乐观预测,这一关系并不出现在具有承销商关系的分析师组(经济利益假说),而是出现在分析师对公司未来一年盈余预测准确度较高和公司未来经营业绩较好(信息决策假说)的情况下。本研究结论一方面能帮助人们重新理解违规处罚这一负面信息披露的影响效应;另一方面也能帮助人们深入了解证券分析师对公司特定风险事件的内在决策过程和反应。

Listed firms violation and the subsequent punishment by regulators is a well concerned issue to the investors,which is always an important question about the economic consequences of the listed firms violation punishment.Previous studies on whether and how the investors react to the regulatory punishment mainly examined the market reactions to the announcement date of the firms punishment,but these studies failed to reach a consensus on the finding.There are three possible reasons to explain the different findings.Firstly,the market reaction is a complex consequence of the trading behaviors by different kinds of investors,like the individual and the institutional investors.They hold different information set and may react differently to punishment,and thus the specific reaction of stocks partially depends on the game between them.Secondly,an uncertain market reaction may be due to the different choices of institutional investors trading strategies,such as momentum or reversal,due to unobservable reasons.Thirdly,the time gap between the publication of a violation incident and the announcement date of regulators punishment may be a long-term period,and the market has already reacted negatively to the violation long before the announcement date of the punishment.When the final punishment decision is disclosed by regulators,investors may take uncertainty about the event into consideration and,in turn,take the event as good news(or not bad news)and make the positive reaction to the announcement of punishment.Compared with prior literature,this paper attempts to examine whether and how analysts respond to the announcement of punishment,which can provide new evidence to the prior debate on economic consequences.In addition,analysts do their forecasts and recommendations mainly base on their information acquisition,and will less likely be affected by the type of investors and their trading strategies.Using the data of financial analysts forecasts and recommendations to the A-listed firms in Chinese market,this paper finds that analysts report optimistic earnings forecasts and stock recommendations in the year when the regulators announced a punishment decision to the listed firms.Further,we explore the reasons that analysts make optimistic forecasts and recommendations to the punishment incidents.When the regulator announces a punishment decision,it is possible for analysts to provide either optimistic or pessimistic report,which depends on analysts own decision-making process.This paper builds up the theoretical model to analyze the possible reasons that can explain why the analysts make optimistic opinion when facing violation punishment and bring out two competing theories:Information-decision theory and Interest-conflict theory.First of all,the Information-decision theory supposes that analysts make forecasts mainly base on their rational analyses of whether and how the punishment decision will affect the firm in future.Analysts will issue optimistic forecasts or recommendations if they believe that the firm is currently well performing and this punishment will not affect firms future operation,or vice versa.Secondly,the Interest-conflict theory tells us that analysts couldn t hold unbiased position and hence make optimistic forecasts due to the pressure from brokerage house,investment banking relationship with firms,incentive to obtain high commission fees and setup a better relationship with managers.The empirical evidence supports the Information-decision theory and rejects the Interest-conflict theory.Specifically,we find that the result about analysts optimistic response to the punishment of corporates is not pronounced in the firms who have underwriter-relationship with analysts(Interest-conflict),but in the firms with better future performance or higher analysts forecasts accuracy(Information-decision).All the results show that analysts react optimistically to firms punishment incidents is mainly due to their information decision-making,rather than economic interests.Our research provides new empirical evidence on the economic consequence of regulatory punishment to the listed firms from the perspective of financial analysts behavior,which may help to better understand the prior debate on whether the punishment is good or bad news under the special background in China.In addition,by examining analysts response to firms violation punishment,our result can also help to better understand analysts internal decision-making process and how the analysts strategically react to some firm-specific events.