Investors and financial advisors may be influenced by an unusual element of a stock market forecast – the analyst’s name. That’s the finding of a new study by researchers at the Cass Business School in London which discovered that a more favourable surname elicited stronger market reactions to earnings forecasts.
The researchers measured surname favourability using the US historical immigration records to identify countries of origin associated with a particular surname and the Gallup survey data on Americans’ favourability toward foreign countries. The research paper ‘An Analyst by Any Other Surname: Surname Favorability and Market Reaction to Analyst Forecasts’ is conditionally accepted for publication in the Journal of Accounting and Economics.