We investigate the stock returns subsequent to quarterly earnings surprises, where the benchmark for an earnings surprise is the consensus analyst forecast. By defining the surprise relative to an analyst forecast rather than a time‐series model of expected earnings, we document returns subsequent to earnings announcements that are much larger, persist for much longer, and are more heavily concentrated in the long portion of the hedge portfolio than shown in previous studies. We show that our results hold after controlling for risk and previously documented anomalies, and are positive for every quarter between 1988 and 2000. Finally, we explore the financial results and information environment of firms with extreme earnings surprises and find that they tend to be “neglected” stocks with relatively high book‐to‐market ratios, low analyst coverage, and high analyst forecast dispersion. In the three subsequent years, firms with extreme positive earnings surprises tend to have persistent earnings surprises in the same direction, strong growth in cash flows and earnings, and large increases in analyst coverage, relative to firms with extreme negative earnings surprises. We also show that the returns to the earnings surprise strategy are highest in the quartile of firms where transaction costs are highest and institutional investor interest is lowest, consistent with the idea that market inefficiencies are more prevalent when frictions make it difficult for large, sophisticated investors to exploit the inefficiencies.

Implied equity duration was originally developed to analyze the sensitivity of equity prices to discount rate changes. We demonstrate that implied equity duration is also useful for analyzing the sensitivity of equity prices to pandemic shutdowns. Pandemic shutdowns primarily impact short‐term cash flows, thus they have a greater impact on low‐duration equities. We show that implied equity duration has a strong positive relation to U.S. equity returns and analyst forecast revisions during the onset of the 2020 COVID‐19 shutdown. Our analysis also demonstrates that the underperformance of “value” stocks during this period is a rational response to their lower durations.