Do Analyst Practices and Broker Resources Affect Target Price Accuracy? An Empirical Study on Sell Side Research in an Emerging Market

This paper attempts to measure the impact of non-financial factors including analyst practices and broker resources on performance of sell side research. Results reveal that these non-financial factors have a measurable impact on performance of target price forecasts. Number of pages written by an analyst (surrogate for analyst practice) is significantly and directly linked with target price accuracy indicating a more elaborate analyst produces better target price forecasts. Analyst compensation (surrogate for broker resource) is significantly and inversely linked with target price accuracy. Out performance by analysts working with lower paying firms is possibly associated with motivation to migrate to higher paying broking firms. The study finds that employing more number of analysts per research report has no significant impact on target price accuracy -negative coefficient indicates that team work may not result in better target price forecasts. Though insignificant, long term forecast horizon negatively affects target price accuracy while stock volatility improves target price accuracy.