The Predictive Role of Analyst Coverage Intensity: Evidence from Cross-Listing in the U.S.

Abstract

This paper investigates financial analysts’ predictive power of future performance and earnings quality, based on their selective coverage of firms that have recently cross-listed into the U.S. This setting is useful for examining these questions because, following cross-listing, firms often experience an increase in analyst coverage and an improvement in their information environment. We find that analyst coverage is positively related to analysts’ expectation about firms’ future performance and negatively related to analysts’ concern over firms’ earnings quality. Furthermore, country-level legal origin and disclosure index are two significant determinants of analyst coverage of cross-listed firms. In addition, the intensity of analyst coverage can predict future abnormal stock price performance. Our latter finding augments those in Das, Guo, and Zhang (2006), who investigate the predictive role of analyst coverage following IPOs. The benefit of our setting is that, unlike the post-IPO period, cross-listing firms do not appear to experience mis-pricing that might confound the results. Overall, our study further documents the substantial informational benefits to cross-listing, but suggests that these informational benefits may not be complete, since financial analysts appear to have predictive power and selectively provide coverage for firms with favorable future prospects.