Journal of Accounting Research Vol. 39 No. 3 2001
Mutual Fund Manager Forecasting Behavior
Abstract
I examine publicly released annual earnings forecasts issued in conjunction with stock recommendations by mutual fund managers of actively managed open‐end mutual funds. I find that mutual fund manager annual earnings forecasts systematically overestimate the earnings number later disclosed at the annual earnings announcement. In further analyses, I attempt to distinguish between two explanations for this forecast bias: an untruthful reporting bias (market manipulation) and a truthful cognitive bias (optimism). These explanations generate different predictions about the timing of changes in fundholdings of forecasted securities between the forecast release and annual earnings announcement dates. I interpret my findings as more consistent with an optimism explanation for mutual fund manager annual forecast bias and less consistent with a market manipulation explanation for this bias. I am, however, unable to eliminate an unobservable selection bias either in the decision of the mutual fund manager to report a forecast publicly or in the media’s decision to publish that forecast as an explanation for my finding that mutual fund manager forecasts are biased.
- DOI
- 10.1111/1475-679x.00035
- Volume
- 39
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 707-725
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref openalex