Sell-Side Analysts' Reports and the Current External Reporting Model

Abstract

This study explores the nature of the information (financial, nonfinancial, and other) that is disseminated by quarterly recommendation reports of sell-side financial analysts. We content-analyzed nearly 7,000 elements contained in 64 analysts' quarterly recommendation reports for companies in four different industries: two intangible-asset-intensive industries and two tangible-asset-intensive industries. The results indicate that analysts' recommendation reports provide a significantly higher proportion of financial information and lower proportion of nonfinancial information for tangible-asset-intensive companies than intangible-asset-intensive companies. We also identify the number of financial and nonfinancial information elements that are traced to SEC filings. We find that a high percentage of this information, especially nonfinancial information, is not provided in these filings. This finding raises significant concerns about the completeness of the current reporting model.