Analyst forecasts: sales and profit margins

C. S.Agnes Cheng, Kai Cheung Chu, James Ohlson

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Sales and profit margins are two popular earnings components discussed in the media. We study properties of one-year-ahead analyst forecasts of these two components. As sales are in dollar amounts and profit margin is a ratio, we propose robust statistical methods to assess and contrast their forecast properties. We find that four performance properties associated with earnings forecasts—optimism, relative accuracy with respect to benchmark model forecasts, forecast suboptimality, and serial correlation of forecast errors—apply to both sales and profit margins. Sales forecasts, in general, perform better than profit margin forecasts. Further evidence also shows that sales forecasts perform better than profit margin forecasts in terms of how their forecast errors explain earnings forecast errors and how realized surprises affect adjustments of the respective forecasts. We also find that a better information environment, surrogated by size, improves sales forecasts more than profit margin forecasts. All of these findings suggest that forecasting profit margins is inherently more difficult than forecasting sales.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)54-83
Number of pages30
JournalReview of Accounting Studies
Volume25
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2020

Keywords

  • Note: This data is mandatory

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Accounting
  • Business, Management and Accounting(all)

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Analyst forecasts: sales and profit margins'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this