Investor Demand for Sell-Side Research

Alastair Lawrence
lawrence@haas.berkeley.edu

Haas School of Business

University of California at Berkeley
2220 Piedmont Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94720-1900

James Ryans
jryans@london.edu

London Business School

Regents Park
London NW1 4SA
United Kingdom

Estelle Sun
yesun@bu.edu

Questrom School of Business

Boston University
595 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215

June 2016

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: We are grateful to Yahoo! Inc. for providing the Yahoo Finance web-traffic data.
We also are grateful to stocktargetprices.com for providing the initial web-traffic data used in an earlier version of
this study. We have received helpful comments from Beverly Walther (Editor), two anonymous reviewers, Yonca
Ertimur, Weili Ge, Rick Johnston, Stephannie Larocque, Alina Lerman, Joshua Livnat, Maria Loumioti, Matthew
Lyle, Sarah McVay, Laura Wellman, and from seminar participants at the 2013 AAA FARS Midyear Conference
(San Diego), 2013 AAA Western Region Meeting Doctoral Interchange (San Francisco), and 2013 EAA Annual
Congress (Paris).

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2173546

 Investor Demand for Sell-Side Research

ABSTRACT: We use daily page views of analyst estimates, ratings, and target prices on
Yahoo Finance to understand when such users seek sell-side analyst research. Demand for this
information is most pronounced on days with earnings announcements, management guidance,
and All-Star analyst reports. Surprisingly, demand does not increase at Form 10-K and Form
10-Q filings. While the overall demand for analyst estimates is 19.9 percent less than for
analyst ratings and target prices, on earnings announcement and management guidance days
this preference is reversed. Moreover, the demand for analyst information substantially trumps
that of SEC filings and financial statement information.

KEYWORDS: Analyst demand; financial reporting events; analyst ability; retail investors.

JEL CLASSIFICATION: M41, G14, and G24.

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2173546

 I. INTRODUCTION

In this study we use Yahoo Finance web traffic to provide insights into the value that

analysts provide to these users, both in general and surrounding specific information events.

We further investigate when demand for analyst estimates (EPS and sales) differs from demand

for opinions (ratings and target prices), an important determinant for shaping analysts decision

of when to issue a report and what type of information to include. Despite the prevalence of

analysts in financial markets, academic research is still uncertain concerning the underlying

value of sell-side equity analysts and why they provide certain types of information (Beyer,

Cohen, Lys, and Wa1ther 2010).

While investigating investor demand for analyst information would seem to be an

obvious method to assess where analysts provide value, direct measures of demand for analyst

information have heretofore been unavailable. 1 As a result, prior research frequently measures

investor demand using the number of analysts following a firm (e.g., Bhushan 1989; OBrien

and Bhushan 1990; Lang and Lundholm 1996; Barth, Kasznik, and McNichols 2001; Lehavy,

Li, and Merkley 2011) and the stock market responses to analyst reports (e.g., Frankel,

Kothari, and Weber 2006; Hugon and Muslu 2010; Altnkl, Balashov, and Hansen 2013).

We use daily page views of Yahoo Finances (finance.yahoo.com) firm-specific presentation of

analyst opinions (buy/sell ratings and target prices) and estimates (earnings, revenue, and

growth) to increase our understanding of: (i) the determinants of investor demand for analyst

information, and (ii) the determinants of investor demand for analyst estimates versus opinions

and target prices. We supplement these analyses by investigating how the demand for analyst

1
Databases such as Institutional Brokers Estimate System (I/B/E/S) have coverage of the supply of the main quantitative
information elements provided by analysts, including EPS and revenue forecasts.

1
information differs from that of financial statement information and SEC filingskey

information sources that analysts process for investorsand the conditions under which

investors demand analyst information, but no reports are issued.

Yahoo Finance (finance.yahoo.com) is the most popular web site for financial

information in the U.S. (Yahoo 2016). It provides firm-specific coverage of all publicly-listed

companies on U.S. exchanges. Because of the large number of daily users, the web-traffic

patterns on Yahoo Finance are likely representative of the U.S. retail investor population, and

not of professional investors. While the predominantly retail clientele of Yahoo Finance limits

our ability to generalize these results to professional investors, our results are nonetheless

interesting as retail investors have been shown to affect prices (e.g., Lee, Shleifer, and Thaler

1991; Barber, Odean, and Zhu 2009; Aboody, Lehavy, and Trueman 2010), and are an

important audience for stock analysts, who frequently appear in the mass media to promote

their research. Additionally, Shiller (2015) argues that the distinction between retail and

professional investors may be subtler than once thought as retail investors get advice from

professional investors, often have substantial resources, are usually educated and intelligent,

and tend to have similar views to those of professionals.

Our main findings are as follows. First, demand for analyst information on Yahoo

Finance is highest on days with management guidance, earnings announcements, and Form 8-

Ks. Surprisingly, we do not find increases in demand on days with Form 10-K and Form 10-Q

filings. Specifically, investor searches for analyst information are 181.8, 152.9, and 5.9 percent

higher on days with management guidance, earnings announcements, and Form 8-Ks,

respectively, compared to the overall average level of search. Demand also increases the day

prior to earnings announcements, as users establish performance benchmarks. However,

2
investor searches for analyst information are 10.6, 9.4, and 2.4 percent lower than the overall

average level on days with Form 10-K, Form 10-Q, and Form 4 filings, respectively.

The lower demand for analyst information following the release of Forms 10-Ks and

10-Qs appears to reflect sparse retail demand for financial statement information and SEC

filings. For example, the demand for analyst information on non-information event days is on

average over 6 times that of the Yahoo Finance SEC filings pages, and more than double that

of the Yahoo Finance financial statement pages, and on event days reaches up to 20 times that

of SEC filings pages and 4 times that of financial statement pages. These results provide

evidence suggesting that the demand for analyst information significantly trumps that of

financial reporting information and that the average retail investor appears to rely on analysts

to interpret financial reporting information rather than read the actual filings.

Second, while the overall demand for analyst estimates is 19.9 percent lower than the

demand for analyst ratings and target prices, whether investors specifically seek analysts

earnings and sales estimates rather than target prices and recommendations at reporting events

depends on whether the event pertains to earnings-related news. Searches for analyst estimates

are 73.8 percent higher than for analyst ratings and target prices on earnings announcement

days, and 30.8 percent higher on management guidance announcement days, while they are

lower for non-earnings-related events such as Form 8-K, Form 10-K, and Form 10-Q filings.

Beyer et al. (2010, p. 335) highlight that the research is uncertain as to why the practice of

forecasting earnings is so prevalent. Our findings indicate that forecasting earnings is

prevalent because investors prefer analyst estimates to recommendations and target prices at

earnings-related financial reporting events.

3
 Third, firm visibility (e.g., news, extreme returns, initiations and drops of analyst

coverage) is also a significant determinant of investor demand for analyst information. The

demand for analyst information on Yahoo Finance increases between 9 and 15 percent during

days with analyst coverage changes. Media is a significant determinant of demand, supporting

the inference that investors seek analyst guidance to provide resolution to news or possible

uncertainty resulting in heightened visibility. Fourth, even though analyst report narratives are

not directly available on Yahoo Finance, celebrity analysts and attention-grabbing reports are

associated with higher investor demand for analyst information. Specifically, demand for

analyst information increases by 68.2, 39.4, and 8.8 percent on days when celebrity (i.e.,

Institutional Investor All-Star), bold, and more timely analysts, respectively, issue reports; and

investors appear to learn of such analyst reports through the media as suggested by the positive

and significant interactions between such reports and daily media coverage.

The distribution of investor demand is concentrated into relatively few days, as we find

at the firm level that 20 percent of annual analyst page views are concentrated into 5 percent of

days, and 50 percent of annual page views are concentrated into 20 percent of days.

Information event days alone account for a significant fraction of annual page views: if we

consider earnings announcement days and the day following, 7.9 percent of annual analyst

page views occur on 2.2 percent of days. For the average firm, 29.9 percent of firm-days have

media coverage and these days account for 55.3 percent of annual page views. Additionally,

analyst report issuance does not always correspond with abnormal investor demand. Analysts

do issue timely revisions around high-demand and predictable events such as earnings

announcements, but there are opportunities for analysts to revise guidance and estimates after

unpredictable media coverage.

4
 Although our findings provide initial inferences of when investors demand the types of

analyst information presented on Yahoo Finance, we are still limited in assessing how

investors use this information. Moreover, while our inferences reflect the search patterns of

millions of unique daily users on Yahoo Finance, these patterns are likely representative of the

U.S. retail investor population, not of professional investors. Despite these limitations, our

study provides a greater understanding of investor demand for analyst information and

provides novel evidence suggesting the value and importance of analyst information to Yahoo

Finance users.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section II presents the background

literature and hypotheses development, Section III presents our data and sample, Section IV

presents our results, and Section V concludes.

II. BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESES

Despite research indirectly inferring investors demand for analyst information (e.g.,

Bhushan 1989; OBrien and Bhushan 1990; Barth et al. 2001; Frankel et al. 2006; Hugon and

Muslu 2010; Lehavy et al. 2011; Yezegel 2015), the conditions under which investors seek

analyst information and the type of information sought are still not well understood (Beyer et

al. 2010). Academic findings concerning the underlying value of sell-side analyst information

are mixed. While a large body of literature finds significant investment value from following

analysts ratings and forecasts (e.g., Barber and Loffler 1993; Womack 1996; Asquith,

Mikhail, and Au 2005; Frankel, et al. 2006; Barber, Lehavy, McNichols, and Trueman 2006;

Mikhail, Walther, and Willis 2007), another growing body of research questions the

contribution and the value of analysts (e.g., Dechow and Sloan 1997; Barber, Lehavy,

McNichols, and Trueman 2001; Kothari, Li, and Short 2009; Drake, Rees, and Swanson 2011).

5
The former studies generally find that it is profitable to follow analysts advice or that there is

significant information content in analyst reports; whereas the latter studies suggest that

systematic bias in analyst forecasts results in temporary mispricing, that analyst

recommendations are no longer profitable net of trading costs, that analyst reports appear stale

relative to the business press, and that analyst recommendations are contrarian indicators in the

presence of conflicting short interest.

Recent research highlights the importance of the financial press as an information

intermediary (e.g., Bushee, Core, Guay, and Hamm 2010; Solomon and Soltes 2012) and even

questions whether analysts provide value over and above the financial press (e.g., Kothari et al.

2009). Furthermore, Altnkl, et al. (2013, p. 2550) provide evidence suggesting that

analysts piggyback their reports on public information from recent events and news about the

firm, while delivering little incremental information, meaning that analysts convert public

information into a forecast revision, which is not very informative beyond the information

itself. However, other research suggests that higher quality analysts are quoted in the financial

press (Bonner, Hugon, and Walther 2007; Rees, Sharp, and Twedt 2015), and that analysts are

actually issuing reports when there are greater opportunities to process information, detect

potential mispricings (Li, Ramesh, Shen, and Wu 2015), respond to investor demand (Yezegel

2015), and provide an important governance role (e.g., Moyer, Chatfield, and Sisneros 1989;

Dyck, Morse, and Zingales 2010; Chen, Harford, and Lin 2015).

The main purpose of the study is to increase our understanding of investor demand for

analysts main outputs, using predominantly retail investors daily page views of Yahoo

Finances firm-specific analyst information pages for stocks listed in the U.S. Prior research

argues that the main value proposition of analysts is that they process and interpret information

6
(e.g., Schipper 1991; Lang and Lundholm 1996). Analysts publicize their research to market

their brokerage services to customers and potential customers (e.g., OBrien and Bhushan

1990), and to increase investor recognition and ownership of promoted securities (Merton

1987; Barber and Odean 2008). Analysts also make use of the media to widely disseminate

their research to increase their prestige and compensation (e.g., Groysberg, Healy, and Maber

2011; Rees et al. 2015). Hence, it is important to understand the demand for analyst

information to provide insight into analysts decisions of when to update their reports, the

boldness or timeliness of their forecasts, and the type of information to present, such as

estimates versus ratings and target prices (see Beyer et al. 2010).

We predict that demand for analysts interpretation of corporate financial reporting

information should be most pronounced at the time of the public release of such information

(e.g., Ivkovi and Jegadeesh 2004). Furthermore, demand for analyst information may also

increase prior to predictable information events, as pre-event updates are informative (e.g.,

Kim and Verrecchia 1997; Ivkovi and Jegadeesh 2004) and as investors establish performance

benchmarks for expected information releases (e.g., Drake, Roulstone, and Thornock 2012,

2015). Given that different users of financial information have different abilities to process

information (e.g., Indjejikian 1991, Ball 1992), we expect, especially for the predominantly

retail user base of Yahoo Finance, that analysts are in a position to help these investors process

such information releases. Our first hypothesis, in alternative form, is:

H1: Demand for analyst information is more pronounced surrounding financial

reporting events.

Beyer et al. (2010) show that among the set of disclosure events for which they test

relative importance, management guidance and earnings announcements are the most price-

relevant, while SEC filings are the least. Additionally, media coverage is more pronounced

7
surrounding earnings and guidance announcements rather than surrounding SEC filings, which

is important given that media coverage generates investor activity (e.g., Engelberg and Parsons

2011). 2 Hence, many SEC filings (e.g., 10-Ks, 10-Qs) may not capture the attention of retail

investors, resulting in limited demand for analyst support even though the information event

may be relatively complex. Our underlying null hypothesis is that investors may not exhibit

greater demand for analyst information at financial reporting events, especially demand not

explained by the overall level of firm-specific information consumption, given that analysts

may simply parrot the news or may not be more skilled at interpreting particular types of

information. If investors demand analyst information at the time of financial reporting events,

we predict cross sectional variation based on the expected information content of the event, for

example, that there is more demand for analyst information at the time of earnings

announcements and management guidance updates compared to more routine SEC filings.

We also explore varying levels of demand for analyst estimates versus

recommendations and target prices, an area that Beyer et al. (2010) note is not well-understood.

Ivkovi and Jegadeesh (2004) separately examine the informativeness of forecast and

recommendation revisions surrounding earnings announcements, and find that both are

informative especially in the days leading up to earnings announcements. Their model does not

seek to predict the relative importance of analyst estimates versus recommendations, and so

our null hypothesis is that there is no difference in demand between the two types of

information surrounding financial reporting events. We predict that investors are more likely to

seek analysts estimates when the reporting event directly pertains to earnings news,

2
Due to limited research examining media coverage surrounding all of the main financial reporting events, in untabulated
analyses we examine the media coverage surrounding all major financial reporting events, finding that media coverage is most
pronounced for earnings announcements, followed by management guidance, Form 10-Ks, Form 10-Qs, Form 8-Ks, and Form
4s, respectively.

8
specifically at earnings announcements and management guidance updates, and that analyst

estimates are less important than recommendations when the reporting event does not

specifically relate to earnings news. Our second hypothesis, in alternative form, is:

H2: Demand for analyst estimates is more pronounced than for analyst opinions
surrounding financial reporting events with earnings news.

Moreover, we predict that firm visibility leads to higher levels of information

collection (e.g., Grevais, Kaniel, and Mingelgrin 2001; Grullon, Kanatas, and Weston 2004;

Barber and Odean 2008) by both potential buyers and sellers of a security. We use four proxies

for visibility that are used in prior studies. First, media coverage of a security raises its

visibility and often presents information that analysts interpret for investors (e.g., Tetlock

2007; Bushee et al. 2010; Engelberg and Parsons 2011; Rees et al. 2015). Consequently, media

coverage is likely to increase demand for analyst information, assuming that the media

coverage itself does not fully satisfy the informational demand of investors. We use changes in

analyst coverage as our second proxy for visibility, as analysts choose to cover securities

specifically for the purpose of increasing investor awareness (OBrien and Bhushan 1990).

Initiation and discontinuation of coverage is associated with future firm performance, and new

coverage tends to be more accurate (McNichols and OBrien 1997). Irani and Oesch (2013)

show that reductions in coverage reflect negatively on future financial reporting quality.

Similarly, retail investor awareness of a security can also be attributed to significant price

movements (e.g., Lee et al. 1991; Barber et al. 2009; Aboody et al. 2010), so we use abnormal

stock returns as our third proxy for visibility. Our fourth proxy for visibility is the change in

short interest. Short sellers garner investor attention as they promote their opinions of

overvaluation in the media (Ljungqvist and Qian 2016). Drake et al. (2011) show that analyst

9
recommendations are not credible when they contrast with the level of short interest, and as a

result, investors may be less likely to seek analyst information when short interest increases.

Moreover, the predominantly retail investor base of Yahoo Finance is likely to be short sale-

constrained, and such investors are unlikely to undertake research to short-sell a security

(Barber and Odean 2008). However, for the subset of investors who already own shares in

firms targeted by short sellers, there may be an increase in demand for analyst information to

inform a decision about whether to sell an existing position.

While it may be intuitive that many of the foregoing proxies for visibility will be

associated with increases in investor page views for a security on Yahoo Finance, it is not

necessarily obvious that such investor attention will result in an increase in demand for analyst

information after controlling for the overall increase in information consumption. We predict

that the demand for analyst information increases in firm visibility, even after controlling for

overall information demand. Our third hypothesis, in alternative form, is:

H3: Demand for analyst information is increasing in firm visibility.

Lastly, we predict that the demand for analyst information varies with analyst

characteristics. On the one hand, analyst characteristics may be unknown to the predominantly

retail investor base of Yahoo Finance, or such investors may not respond to situations in which

analyst recommendations are likely to be more informative. On the other hand, prior research

suggests that analyst characteristics are effective determinants of the price-relevance of

estimates and recommendations. The market response to analyst information is greater for

more-timely analysts (e.g., Trueman 1994; Cooper, Day, and Lewis 2001; Clement and Tse

2003; Gleason and Lee 2003; Mozes 2003; Loh and Stulz 2011), and timely analysts tend to

10
have more experience (Hong, Kubik, and Solomon 2000). Consequently, we predict that timely

analyst reports are associated with greater investor demand.

Bold recommendations, which are those made further from the consensus, have also

been shown to be more price-relevant (e.g., Jegadeesh and Kim 2010). Hong et al. (2000) build

upon models of reputation and herding (e.g., Scharfstein and Stein 1990; Zwiebel 1995) to

show that career concerns influence forecast boldness, finding that analysts issuing bolder

forecasts are more likely to be terminated. If analysts increase their likelihood of termination

by issuing bold forecasts that provide poor advice, an offsetting benefit of bold forecasts could

be additional visibility for the analyst and career benefits when such calls are accurate. 3

Accordingly, we predict that bold analysts forecasts increase the demand for analyst

information. Finally, as celebrity analysts are by definition more prominent and have their

reports promoted in the media (e.g., Rees et al. 2015), and as their opinions and estimates are

price-relevant (e.g., Bonner et al. 2007; Loh and Stulz 2011), we predict that investor demand

increases when All-Star analysts issue reports. Our fourth hypothesis in alternative form is:

H4: Demand for analyst information is increasing in analyst boldness, timeliness, and
All-Star status.

III. DATA & SAMPLE

Yahoo Finance Data

We obtain proprietary web-traffic data from Yahoo! Inc. for all firm-specific page

views on Yahoo Finance (finance.yahoo.com) from July 1, 2014 to July 1, 2015. 4 Yahoo

3
For example, bold Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas appeared in a prominent Wall Street Journal article upon revising an
extreme target price for Tesla Motors shares downward by $117 from $450 to $333, on a day when Tesla was trading at $286.
Teslas Biggest Bull Slashes His Price Target By More Than $100, by Kristen Scholer, The Wall Street Journal, February 1,
2016.
4
We thank StockTargetPrices.com for providing data utilized in a prior version of this study, and note that the results using
Stock Target Prices data are generally consistent with the results using Yahoo Finance data. The primary benefit to using

11
Finance offers general financial news and market information, and firm-specific information

accessed from each companys summary page. The page view data in this study is different

and more specific than prior studies of web behavior (e.g., Drake et al. 2012) that use web

search engine general-query indexes to infer demand for stock-related information. Our page

views all take place on a finance-specific web site, where users have identified the specific

stock ticker symbol and requested specific types of financial and market information. Yahoo

Finances firm-specific pages are accessed either by searching for a company by name or by

stock ticker symbol. Yahoo Finance records page views for the summary page and for each and

every sub-page the user requests. Our data do not include page views of U.S. stocks made on

non-U.S. versions of Yahoo Finance (e.g., finance.yahoo.co.uk for the United Kingdom), so the

vast majority of page views that we observe are for U.S. users. 5

Figure 1 illustrates an example of a firm-specific summary page, which provides access

to 23 different sub-pages, including those for pricing, news, company background, message

board discussion, financial statements, and analyst estimates and opinions, where data for the

sub-pages are available. For the purposes of this study, we are primarily interested in the sell-

side analyst information elements that Yahoo Finance reports for investors, though we are able

to separate investors firm-specific consumption of general information from their

consumption of analyst information by measuring both analyst-related page views and non-

analyst page views.

[Insert Figure 1 here]

Yahoo Finance data is the significantly larger traffic volume and the ability to compare the demand for analyst information to
the demand for other types of financial information.
5
While a user from the United Kingdom could visit the American Yahoo Finance web site, creating a page view that we would
observe, Yahoo indicated in discussions with the authors that international users predominantly use their local version of the
Yahoo Finance web site, and hence, we generally do not observe their page views of U.S. listed stocks.

12
 Yahoo Finance has two firm-specific pages displaying the main quantitative outputs

provided by analysts, which we refer to as analyst information, though we recognize that

analysts provide other information, both quantitative and qualitative, in their detailed reports

and in conversations with their clients and the media. The first page, Analyst Opinion, provides

consensus recommendations and target prices (data provided by Thomson/First Call), as well

as analyst-specific ratings history (data provided by Briefings.com). The second page, Analyst

Estimates, provides consensus EPS, revenue, and long-term growth estimates (data provided

by Thomson/First Call). The analyst data elements presented on Yahoo Finance are updated

daily. Figures 2 and 3 provide examples of the respective firm-specific analyst pages. As with

most major financial providers, Yahoo Finance presents the foregoing analyst outputs on a

consensus basis and does not provide access to the full research reports. An exception to the

consensus presentation is made for recent analyst opinion upgrade and downgrade history,

which is given in detail. Analysts make extensive use of media to promote their research

(Bonner et al. 2007; Rees et al. 2015), and as a result we expect that prominent analysts and

attention-grabbing reports will generate investor demand for analyst information on Yahoo

Finance, enabling us to study the impact of celebrity, bold, and timely analysts, even if report

details are not directly available on Yahoo Finance.

[Insert Figure 2 here]

[Insert Figure 3 here]

Our traffic data consists of daily page views for all U.S. publicly traded stocks,

including Analyst Opinion (AO_PAGEVIEW), Analyst Estimates (AE_PAGEVIEW), and their

sum, Analyst Total (AT_PAGEVIEW). These measures capture the level of demand for analyst

information, consistent with prior studies of consumer demand (e.g., Ludvigson 2004; Parker,

13
Souleles, Johnson, and McClelland 2013). To address the possibility that demand for analyst

information is simply a byproduct of investors search for information in general, we can

control for the demand for other information using other page views (OT_PAGEVIEW, i.e.

non-analyst, firm-specific page views). Hence, we can illustrate both the baseline increase in

demand for analyst information as well as the increase in demand not explained by demand for

other information.

We obtain all financial, market, news information, and analyst characteristics from

FactSet. These data include: quarterly return on assets, leverage, biweekly short interest, daily

stock prices, market capitalization, book-to-market ratio, total returns, analyst reports, news

headline information, earnings announcement dates, the number of analyst following,

management earnings-per-share guidance, and analysts EPS forecasts from detailed broker

files. We obtain EDGAR filing dates from the SECs daily EDGAR index files. See the

Appendix for detailed variable descriptions.

Sample Selection

Our sample period begins July 1, 2014 and continues to July 1, 2015. We match Yahoo

Finance data with FactSet based on the ticker symbol. Our main analyses include weekend

days, with abnormal returns set to zero and financial variables set to the preceding Fridays

value. As a robustness test, we exclude weekend days from our analyses and our results are

unchanged. We match firms to their EDGAR filings using FactSets primary CIK for each

security. Our initial sample includes 1,843,176 firm-day observations for 5,036 unique firms.

We exclude firms with no analyst following during the entire sample period, as these firms

have no analyst pages on Yahoo Finance for which to record page views, reducing our sample

to 1,612,596 firm-days for 4,406 unique firms. After excluding observations with missing data

14
items, we obtain a final sample of 1,353,030 firm-days for 4,068 unique firms. The final

sample contains 213,551 EDGAR filings, 425,063 analyst report records, and 1,113,529 news

headlines.

[Insert Table 1 here]

IV. RESULTS

Descriptive Statistics

Table 1 provides descriptive statistics for the variables in our analyses. Page view

counts are measured by firm-day, and these values are normalized by the mean daily page view

counts for all U.S. listed firms provided by Yahoo Finance. The mean daily total page views is

therefore 1.0 for our sample period, prior to dropping observations that do not meet our data

requirements. AT_PAGEVIEW (unlogged) has a mean value of 0.019, indicating that

approximately 1.9 percent of the average firm-day page view volume is for Analyst Total page

views. AO_PAGEVIEW (unlogged) has a mean value of 0.010. AE_PAGEVIEW (unlogged)

has a mean value of 0.008. The mean of AO_PAGEVIEW is statistically (p < 0.01) higher than

the mean of AE_PAGEVIEW, suggesting that investors have a general preference for target

prices and ratings over earnings and sales estimates, with the overall demand for Analyst

Estimates being 19.9 percent lower than for Analyst Opinions. We control for the overall

demand for firm-specific financial information by observing all other page views (non-analyst

page views) on the Yahoo Finance firm-specific pages (OT_PAGEVIEW), which has a mean

value of 1.098, exceeding the expected value of 0.981 (1 0.019), as the observations

eliminated due to missing data had fewer page views on average than the entire Yahoo Finance

15
U.S. stock universe. We use the natural logarithm of one plus the page view counts in our

regressions, and even after taking logarithms, the resulting page views are right-skewed.

The mean value of AT_PAGEVIEW is 0.019, comparable to the 75th percentile value of

0.015. The 95th percentile value is 0.073, and the maximum value is 7.668. In untabulated

analyses, we find that for the average firm, approximately 50 (20) percent of annual analyst

page views occur in 72 (18) days out of the sample period of 365 days. EARN_ANN has a mean

value of 0.011, equal to the expected value of 0.011 (4 / 365). We also separately examine

bundled earnings announcements, i.e., those with management guidance issued on the same

day (EARN_ANN_G), and earnings announcements without guidance (EARN_ANN_NG). In

our sample, 15.2 percent of earnings announcements are bundled with guidance

(2,256/14,827). 8K has a mean value of 0.020, indicating that firms on average release 7.3 8-Ks

during the year (0.020 x 365), not counting those released surrounding earnings

announcements. FORM4 has a mean value of 0.039, indicating that firms on average report

14.2 insider trades per year (0.039 x 365).

We consider several measures of firm visibility. The mean value of INITIATION is

0.010, indicating that one percent of firm-days have an increase in the number of analysts

following, and the mean value of DROP is 0.010, indicating that one percent of firm-days have

a decrease in the number of analysts following. The median number of news headlines is zero,

the 75th percentile is one headline (0.693 in log form), and the 95th percentile is four headlines

(1.609 in log form). We use three measures of analyst characteristics. The mean value of 0.007

16
for ALL_STAR indicates that All-Star analyst reports are observed on only 0.7 percent of firm-

days. 6 BOLD has a mean value of 0.007 and TIMELY has a mean value of 0.012.

[Insert Table 2 here]

Table 2 provides the Pearson correlations for the primary variables used in our

analyses. Analyst Total page views (AT_PAGEVIEW) are positively correlated with the

demand for financial information in general (OT_PAGEVIEW; corr. = 0.81), media coverage

(MEDIA; corr. = 0.28), and analyst report issuance (REPORT; corr. = 0.28). The correlation

between Analyst Opinion page views (AO_PAGEVIEW) and Analyst Estimates page views

(AO_PAGEVIEW) is 0.92, highlighting that investors usually concurrently search for both

analyst opinions (target prices and ratings) and estimates. Of the control variables, size has the

greatest correlation with AT_PAGEVIEW (MCAP; corr. = 0.35).

[Insert Table 3 here]

Univariate Analysis of Analyst Total Page Views

Table 3 presents a univariate analysis of the difference in mean values of Analyst Total

page views (AT_PAGEVIEW), conditioned on the information event, visibility, and analyst

characteristic variables. In all cases, the differences in means are statistically significant, with

t-statistics greater than 4.00 for all conditioning variables. The increase in Analyst Total page

views is most pronounced for earnings announcements with guidance (EARN_ANN_G), with

an increase of 386.4 percent compared to days when there are no earnings announcements, and

earnings announcements without guidance (EARN_ANN_NG), with an increase in Analyst

6
While it appears that we observe the majority of All-Star analyst reports, certain brokers restrict their identities in Factset,
thus we are unable to flag every All-Star analyst report. For example, with Apple Inc., we observe three out of four All-Star
analysts. We expect that the presence of some unidentified All-Star analyst reports will likely bias against rejecting the null
hypothesis.

17
Total page views of 245.3 percent. The effect for all earnings announcements (EARN_ANN),

with and without guidance changes, is an increase in Analyst Total page views of 270.4

percent. Increases in Analyst Total page views are also significant for Form 10-Ks (38.2

percent), 10-Qs (19.5 percent), 8-Ks (66.7 percent), Form 4s (58.3 percent), and management

guidance (311.6 percent). For the visibility measures, firm-days with changes in analyst

coverage have significant increases in analyst page views compared to other days. Increases in

analyst coverage (INITIATION) correspond to increases in Analyst Total page views of 170.8

percent, and days with coverage drops (DROP) have increases in Analyst Total page views of

119.4 percent. For firm-days with at least one media article (MEDIA_DUM equals one),

Analyst Total page views increase by 177.2 percent. The increase in Analyst Total page views

is 29.5 percent when there is an increase in short interest, and a 3.9 percent increase when

abnormal return is positive versus negative. When we consider analyst characteristics, there is

a 409.5 percent increase on days when All-Star analysts issue reports, a 284.5 percent increase

on days when bold analysts issue reports, and a 244.2 percent increase on days when timely

analysts issue reports, suggesting that investors are aware of analyst report issuance, with a

particular emphasis on those of All-Star analysts. In untabulated analyses we calculate the

mean level of Analyst Estimates (AE_PAGEVIEW) and Analyst Opinion (AO_PAGEVIEW)

page views conditioned on information event days, and find that searches for analyst estimates

are 73.8 percent higher than for analyst ratings and target prices on earnings announcement

days, and 30.8 percent higher on management guidance announcement days, while they are

lower for non-earnings-related news events such as Form 8-Ks (27.6 percent lower), Form 10-

Ks (27.9 percent lower), and Form 10-Qs (23.0 percent lower).

[Insert Figure 4 here]

18
Analyst Page Views Surrounding Information Events

Figure 4 plots the percent change in Yahoo Finance page views relative to earnings

announcement events, as well as for the other information events we study. Analyst Estimates

page views are shown in Panel A, Analyst Opinion page views are shown in Panel B, and

Other Page Views are shown in Panel C. These plots illustrate an increase in demand for

analyst information on the event day (day 0). For earnings announcements, demand noticeably

increases the day prior to the event day, increasing significantly on the event day, and persists

for several days following the event day. Increases in demand are most pronounced for

important earnings-news eventsearnings announcements and management guidance

updatesand are less pronounced for other disclosures. The increase in demand for Analyst

Estimates pages is more pronounced than for Analyst Opinion and Other pages (all firm-

specific page views less analyst page views) surrounding these information events.

[Insert Table 4 here]

Table 4, Panel A presents regressions of the determinants of investor demand for

analyst information, and provides evidence relating to H1, which proposes that investor

demand for analyst information is more pronounced surrounding financial reporting events.

We regress daily Analyst Total page views (AT_PAGEVIEW) on indicator variables for the

presence of specific financial reporting information events: earnings announcements

(EARN_ANN), earnings announcements with guidance (EARN_ANN_G), earnings

announcements without guidance (EARN_ANN_NG), Form 8-Ks, Form 10-Ks, Form 10-Qs,

Form 4s, and changes in management guidance (CHG_GUIDE). In Columns (1) to (3), we

estimate the increase in Analyst Total page views without including a control for other

information page views (OT_PAGEVIEW). This provides an estimate of the overall increase in

19
demand. After controlling for the demand for other information by including OT_PAGEVIEW

as an independent variable, we are able to examine the increase in Analyst Total page views

that are orthogonal to the demand for other information. 7 In all specifications, we control for

the normal level of firm-specific demand for analyst information by including the average level

of firm-Analyst Total page views over the trailing 30 days (AT_PAST30). 8 We also include

controls for MCAP, ROA, LEV, BTM, and PAST_RET_VOL. We cluster standard errors by firm

and include both week-of-year and day-of-week fixed effects.

In Column (1), we consider independent variables for the information event day only

(time subscript t), and the coefficient on EARN_ANN is 0.0260 and significant (p < 0.01),

indicating that there is an average increase of 152.9 percent (0.0260 / 0.017) over the mean

level of AT_PAGEVIEW on days without earnings announcements. The coefficient on 8K is

0.0010 and significant (p < 0.01), indicating an increase in Analyst Total page views of 5.9

percent. The coefficient on 10K is -0.0018 (p < 0.01), and the coefficient on 10Q is -0.0016 (p

< 0.01) indicating a decrease in Analyst Total page views of 10.6 and 9.4 percent at Form 10-K

and Form 10-Q filings, respectively, when those filings are not accompanied by an earnings

announcement, controlling for firm characteristics. The coefficient on FORM4 is -0.0004 (p <

0.05), implying a decrease in Analyst Total page views of 2.4 percent. The coefficient on

management guidance (CHG_GUIDE) is 0.0309 and significant (p < 0.01), indicating an

increase in Analyst Total page views of 181.8 percent on non-earnings announcement days

when management issues updated guidance. Other page views (OT_PAGEVIEW, coeff. =

7
Inferences are more pronounced when we do not control for other OT_PAGEVIEW, consistent with overall demand for
financial information driving some of the demand for analyst information.
8
For July 2014, the normal level of Analyst Total page views is calculated using only the available days of data rather than 30
days given the web-traffic data begins on July 1, 2014. For example, the average level of Analyst Total page views on July 16,
2014, would be computed using only 15 days. We find all the main inferences are robust to dropping observations from July
2014 from the sample.

20
0.0347, p < 0.01), the average level of Analyst Total page views for the past 30-days

(AT_PAST30, coeff. = 0.6025, p < 0.01), and the past returns volatility (PAST_RET_VOL,

coeff. = -0.3291, p < 0.01) are the most significant control variables affecting Analyst Total

page views. These findings indicate that the concurrent demand for other information and

recent demand for analyst information are positive predictors of current demand for analyst

information, while stock return volatility is negatively associated with demand for analyst

information. 9 The reduction in page views for Forms 10-K and 10-Q may be a result of recent

consumption of analyst information at the time of the preceding earnings announcement

(captured by AT_PAST30), and may also reflect that investors are unaware of the timing of

SEC filings. Furthermore, analysts may be slow to update their outputs after these filings, and

therefore investors benefit little from seeking analyst information on the day of the filing itself.

In Column (2) we examine the demand for analyst information in the three days

surrounding the information events. For the information event indicator variables, the subscript

t-1 indicates the demand the day prior to the information event and the subscript t+1 indicates

the demand the day following the information event. Increases in Analyst Total page views

leading up to the event and after the event vary depending on the event variable. For earnings

announcements, the demand is elevated at the p < 0.01 level the day prior to the earnings

announcement (EARN_ANNt-1) with a coefficient of 0.0078 and the day after (EARN_ANNt+1)

with a coefficient of 0.0141. This corresponds to an increase in Analyst Total page views of

44.9 percent over normal levels on the day prior to the earnings announcement, and an increase

in demand of 82.9 percent on the day after the earnings announcement. Changes in guidance

which are not released in conjunction with earnings announcements (CHG_GUIDE) show little

9
The coefficient on PAST_RET_VOL is positive and significant (p < 0.01) when we do not control for OT_PAGEVIEW.

21
increase in Analyst Total page views in the day prior to the guidance change (coeff. = 0.0023, p

< 0.10). 10 The increase in Analyst Total page views the day following the guidance change is

167.6 percent greater than normal levels (coeff. = 0.0285, p < 0.01), higher than the demand the

day after earnings announcements. This suggests that non-earnings announcement guidance

changes, which are often associated with profit warnings and material acquisitions or

divestitures, are events for which investors exhibit significant demand for analyst assistance to

interpret. The remaining information event variables do not have economically significant

effects on Analyst Total page views.

In Column (3), we examine Analyst Total page views separately for earnings

announcements bundled with guidance changes (EARN_ANN_G) and for earnings

announcements without guidance changes (EARN_ANN_NG). Consistent with expectations

that earnings announcements bundled with earnings guidance contain more information that

may be more complicated for investors to process, the coefficient on EARN_ANN_G (coeff. =

0.0353, p < 0.01) is significantly greater (p < 0.01) than the coefficient on EARN_ANN_NG

(coeff. = 0.0244, p < 0.01). These coefficients correspond to an increase in Analyst Total page

views of 207.7 percent for bundled earnings announcements, but 143.5 percent for unbundled

earnings announcements. In Table 4, Panel B we conduct F-tests that individual pairs of

coefficients on the information events in Column (3) are equal. We can reject the pairwise

equality of coefficients at the p < 0.01 level for all cases except for the coefficients between

10K and 10Q (p > 0.80).

[Insert Table 5 here]

10
Some of the guidance events that were not issued concurrently with the earnings announcement were found to be recorded
by FactSet on the trading date rather than the announcement date. We manually checked the accuracy of all such dates,
identified approximately 18 percent of observations that were off by one day, and corrected these dates for our analyses.

22
 Table 5 provides evidence supporting H2, which predicts that the demand for analyst

estimates is more pronounced than for analyst opinions surrounding earnings-news financial

reporting events. We examine investor demand separately for analyst estimates via the Analyst

Estimates page (AE_PAGEVIEW) in Column (1), analyst opinions via the Analyst Opinion

page (AO_PAGEVIEW) in Column (2), and the difference between Analyst Estimates and

Analyst Opinion page views (AE AO_PAGEVIEW) in Column (3), in order to understand

how demand for the type of analyst output varies based on the information event.

On non-information event days, the demand for analyst opinion information is typically

greater, as the intercept term on AE AO_PAGEVIEW is negative and significant (p < 0.01).

However, on the most important information event daysearnings announcements and

management guidance updatesthe demand for analyst estimate information is significantly

greater than the demand for analyst opinion information. Comparing the coefficients on

EARN_ANNt between Columns (1) and (2), we see that the increase in demand for the Analyst

Estimates page is 311.3 percent (0.0249 / 0.008) on the event day, whereas the increase for the

Analyst Opinion page is only 41.0 percent (0.0041 / 0.010).

The difference between AE_PAGEVIEW and AO_PAGEVIEW for earnings

announcements in Column (3) gives a coefficient on EARN_ANN of 0.0201 (p < 0.01),

indicating a significantly greater demand for analyst estimate information at earnings

announcements. Comparing the coefficients on CHG_GUIDEt between Columns (1) and (2),

we see that the increase in demand for the Analyst Estimates page is 306.2 percent on the event

day, whereas the increase for the Analyst Opinion page is only 103.0 percent. The difference

between AE_PAGEVIEW and AO_PAGEVIEW for changes in guidance in Column (3) gives a

coefficient on CHG_GUIDE of 0.0134 (p < 0.01), indicating a significantly greater demand for

23
analyst estimate information at guidance updates. Coefficients on the other information events

are all negative and significant, although their magnitudes are much lower than for earnings

announcements and changes in management guidance, indicating that demand for analyst

estimates is more pronounced surrounding earnings-news events. The coefficients on the

control variables in Column (3) indicate that the demand for estimates over target prices and

recommendations is increasing in firm size (MCAP, coeff. = 0.0002, p < 0.01), profitability

(ROA, coeff. = 0.0002, p < 0.05), growth (BTM, coeff. = -0.0001, p < 0.05), and past return

volatility (PAST_RET_VOL, coeff. = 0.0405, p < 0.01), and decreasing in leverage (LEV, coeff.

= -0.0003, p < 0.01), consistent with the notion that equity valuations are more sensitive to

changes in expected earnings for more profitable and growing firms.

[Insert Table 6 here]

Analyst Page Views, Firm Visibility, and Analyst Characteristics

In Table 6, Panel A, we study the impact of firm visibility and analyst characteristics on

the demand for analyst information, to test H3, which predicts that demand is increasing in

firm visibility, and H4, which predicts that demand is increasing in analyst boldness,

timeliness, and All-Star status. Table 6 has three columns which study the effect of firm

visibility and analyst ability measures on the dependent variables: Analyst Total page views

(AT_PAGEVIEW) in Column (1), Analyst Estimates page views (AE_PAGEVIEW) in Column

(2), and Analyst Opinion page views (AO_PAGEVIEW) in Column (3), respectively. To proxy

for visibility, we utilize the initiation (INITIATION) and dropping (DROP) of coverage by

analysts, the logarithm of one plus the number of media headlines (MEDIA), changes in short

interest (CHG_SHORT), and positive and negative abnormal returns (ABRET_P, ABRET_N).

To proxy for analyst ability, we use an indicator if an Institutional Investor All-Star ranked

24
analyst issues a report (ALL_STAR), an indicator if a bold analyst issues a report (BOLD), and

an indicator if a timely analyst issues a report (TIMELY). We use the same set of control

variables as in Tables 4 and 5 with the addition of the number of reports issued (REPORT).

The overall results from Table 6 indicate that the visibility and analyst ability measures

have a similar direction for all three dependent variables. We first consider the analyst

visibility measures. In Column (1), we observe that an increase in AT_PAGEVIEW is

associated with both initiations (INITIATION, coeff. = 0.0016, p < 0.01) and coverage

terminations (DROP, coeff. = 0.0025, p < 0.01), and the effect is significantly higher for

coverage terminations versus initiations (F-value = 12.64, p < 0.01). These results indicate an

increase in Analyst Total page views of 9.4 percent at coverage initiations, and 14.7 percent at

coverage drops. Higher levels of media reports (MEDIA, coeff. = 0.0016, p < 0.01), and both

abnormal positive returns (AB_RET_P, coeff. = 0.0943, p < 0.01) and abnormal negative

returns (AB_RET_N, coeff. = -0.1005, p < 0.01) are also associated with higher

AT_PAGEVIEW. Only the coefficient on changes in short interest is insignificant

(CHG_SHORT, coeff. = -0.0243, p > 0.10), which may be due to the bi-weekly nature of short

interest reporting, or that investors do not seek analyst estimates and opinions to help explain

changes in short interest. The results for Analyst Estimates page views in Column (2) and

Analyst Opinion page views in Column (3) are similar, with the exception of changes in short

interest in Column (2), (CHG_SHORT, coeff. = -0.0214, p < 0.05), which indicates that

investor demand for analyst estimate information is greater on days when short interest was

reported to have fallen.

We next consider analyst characteristics. In Column (1), the impact of an All-Star

analyst report being issued on a day (ALL_STAR, coeff. = 0.0116, p < 0.01) is associated with

25
an increase in demand for analyst information of 68.2 percent (0.0116 / 0.017), after

controlling for other information and visibility variables. The increase in demand for bold

analysts is 39.4 percent (0.0067 / 0.017). The increase in demand for timely analysts is 8.8

percent (0.0015 / 0.017). The results for Analyst Estimates page views in Column (2) and

Analyst Opinion page views in Column (3) produce similar inferences, except that the demand

for timely analyst information is limited to analyst estimate information in Column (2) (coeff. =

0.0020, p < 0.01), as the coefficient on TIMELY in Column (3) for Analyst Opinion page views

is insignificant.

Since the media provides a channel for disseminating analyst information, we interact

our proxies for analyst ability (ALL_STAR, BOLD, and TIMELY) with the media attention

variable (MEDIA) in Table 6, Panel B. Consistent across all three dependent variables, the

increase in investor demand for analyst information occurs when All-Star, bold, and timely

analyst reports are accompanied by higher levels of media reports (ALL_STAR * MEDIA, coeff.

= 0.0166, p < 0.01; BOLD * MEDIA, coeff. = 0.0086, p < 0.01; TIMELY * MEDIA, coeff. =

0.0018, p < 0.01). The results for Analyst Estimates page views in Column (2) and Analyst

Opinion page views in Column (3) produce similar inferences. These results support the role of

media in disseminating analyst information to the Yahoo Finance audience and increasing

investor demand, primarily for All-Star analysts, and to a lesser extent for bold and timely

analysts. Overall, the findings in Table 6 provide support for H3 and H4 that demand for

analysts is increasing in firm visibility and analyst ability.

[Insert Table 7 here]

26
Demand for Analyst Information versus Demand for Other Financial Information

In Table 7, we examine the relative demand for analyst information compared to other

types of financial information available on Yahoo Finance. In Panel A, we provide descriptive

statistics for the mean number of page views of the major categories of Yahoo Finance firm-

specific pages, for all days and on information event days. The Summary page is the first page

that a Yahoo Finance user sees after searching for a firm, and therefore represents the greatest

number of page views on average (0.802). Moreover, it is the page that investors refresh

throughout the day to observe price changes. The second most popular firm-specific page is the

Yahoo Finance message board (mean page views = 0.197). This finding is consistent with prior

literature highlighting the popularity of stock message boards among retail investors (e.g.,

Wysocki 1999; Tumarkin and Whitelaw 2001; Antweiler and Frank 2004). Analyst

information is the third most popular type of information (mean page views = 0.019),

highlighting the significant importance of analysts to retail investors.

In Panel B, we illustrate the relative increase in demand for analyst information

compared to other types of financial information on information event days to understand the

extent to which Yahoo Finance users seek analyst information more than primary sources of

information. On non-event days (NON_EVENT_DAY), the demand for analyst information is

6.3 times greater than the demand for SEC filings information, and increasing to 17.4 times

greater on earnings announcement days (EARN_ANN), 19.9 times greater on bundled earnings

announcement and management guidance days (EARN_ANN_G), and 19.6 times greater on

management guidance days (CHG_GUIDE). These results indicate that Yahoo Finance users

are significantly more likely to investigate analyst information surrounding important financial

reporting events than the underlying filings. We find similar but less pronounced relative

27
demand for analyst information compared to financial statement information and news

information. It is important to note that the demand for news information could be understated

given that some news information is also reported on the Summary page. In untabulated tests,

we also test whether the demand for analyst information is significantly greater than the

demand for SEC filings, financial statement information, and news information. The mean

ratios of total analyst page views to page views of these other types of information are

significantly (p < 0.01) greater than one. Overall, these findings suggest a fairly sparse retail

demand for financial statement information and SEC filings, especially when compared to the

demand for analyst information.

[Insert Table 8 here]

High Page Views and Analyst Reports

In Table 8, we show that analyst information is still relevant to investors, even when

new analyst reports are not being issued. This finding may indicate three non-mutually-

exclusive situations. First, investors may be seeking analyst information to interpret an event

and are unsatisfied as no updated information is available. Second, investors may find utility in

comparing the event-news to analysts prior expectations, even if there are no updates. Third,

analysts may have reviewed the event and determined that no update to their prior analysis is

required, hence the non-issuance of a report may also be informative to investors. To examine

this question, in Panel A we tabulate the number of firm-day observations with a high level of

page views (two times the normal level of Analyst Total page views for the firm over the

trailing 30 days, which represents the top 11.0 percent of firm-days by Analyst Total page view

traffic), conditioned on no analyst reports being issued on the high page view day (day t) or the

following day (day t+1). Of 149,012 firm-days with high page views on day t, 91,996 (61.7

28
percent) have no analyst reports issued on day t or t+1, indicating that in most instances of

high investor demand for analyst information, there are no current or immediately forthcoming

reports being provided by analysts.

In Panel B, we examine whether these high-demand days are associated with the

information events included in our study. We find that analyst reports are generated much more

frequently for certain events. Analysts provide timely reports for 95.4 percent of high-traffic

earnings announcements days (541 no-report-days versus 11,213 report-days), 94.0 percent of

high-traffic guidance change days. On the other hand, analysts only provide timely reports for

29.6 percent of high-traffic non-earnings announcement 10-Q days, 31.9 percent of high-traffic

Form 4 days, 39.4 percent of high-traffic non-earnings announcement 10-K days, 51.3 percent

of high-traffic 8-K days, and 58.8 percent of high-traffic media days. These results indicate that

while analysts seem to provide reports for predictable value-relevant events such as earnings

announcements and guidance changes, they are not providing reports for some unpredictable

yet value-relevant events such as media coverage, Form 4, and Form 8-K filings. Analysts may

require time to process such events (e.g., Li et al. 2015; Bradshaw, Wang, and Zhou 2015), and

hence do not always satisfy investor demand. In terms of sheer number of event days, the

largest opportunity for analysts to meet unmet demand for analyst information is after media

coverage. Specifically, we find 23,917 firm-days in our sample with media coverage and high

investor demand but no analyst revisions.

V. CONCLUSION

This study examines Yahoo Finance page views of analyst outputs to directly examine

investor demand for analyst estimates, ratings, and target prices. Our empirical evidence

indicates that in terms of financial reporting events, demand is most pronounced at earnings

29
announcements and management guidance updates, and less pronounced on days with Form

10-K and 10-Q filings that do not have accompanying earnings announcements in a

surrounding three-day window. Demand for analyst information is increasing in firm visibility

and investors appear to be aware of analyst characteristics, as evidenced by higher demand

when All-Star, bold, and timely analysts issue reports. While investors display a preference for

target prices and ratings over earnings and sales estimates, this preference is reversed on days

with earnings-related news. Moreover, the demand for analyst information is substantially

higher than for other financial reporting information, indicating that the average Yahoo

Finance user relies on analysts to interpret financial reporting information. Overall, the

findings provide novel evidence indicating the value and importance of analyst information to

Yahoo Finance users.

30
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34
 APPENDIX
Variable Definitions

Variable Definition Data Source

8 "1" if firm i files one or more Form 8-K on day t, "0" EDGAR Daily Index File
otherwise and if the firm has an earnings announcement FactSet: FF_EPS_RPT_DATE
on days t-3 to t+3;
8+ "1" if 8K equals "1" on day t+j, j= -1,1, and zero EDGAR Daily Index File
otherwise; FactSet: FF_EPS_RPT_DATE
10 "1" if firm i files a Form 10-K on day t, "0" otherwise EDGAR Daily Index File
and if the firm has an earnings announcement on days t- FactSet: FF_EPS_RPT_DATE
3 to t+3;
10+ "1" if 10K equals "1" on day t+j, j= -1,1, and zero EDGAR Daily Index File
otherwise; FactSet: FF_EPS_RPT_DATE
10 "1" if firm i files a Form 10-Q on day t, "0" otherwise EDGAR Daily Index File
and if the firm has an earnings announcement on days t- FactSet: FF_EPS_RPT_DATE
3 to t+3;
10+ "1" if 10Q equals "1" on day t+j, j= -1,1, and zero EDGAR Daily Index File
otherwise; FactSet: FF_EPS_RPT_DATE
__ Firm i's equal-weighted market-adjusted return on day t FactSet: P_TOTAL_RETURN
if the abnormal return is positive, else it is set to "0";
__ Firm i's equal-weighted market-adjusted return on day t FactSet: P_TOTAL_RETURN
if the abnormal return is negative, else it is set to "0";
_ "1" if a star analyst issues an EPS forecast, rating, or FactSet:
target price for firm i on day t, "0" otherwise. An analyst FE_BROKER_ESTIMATE
is considered an All-Star analyst if FactSet provides an ANALYST_RANK_VALUE
Institutional Investor All-Star ranking for that analyst;
_ The natural log of one plus firm i's total number of Yahoo Finance
normalized Analyst Estimates page views from Yahoo
Finance on day t. Page views are normalized by the
mean daily page view counts for all U.S. listed firms
provided by Yahoo Finance during our sample period;
AE_PAST30t The natural log of one plus firm i's total number of Yahoo Finance
normalized trailing 30-day average Analyst Estimates
page views from Yahoo Finance on day t-1. Page views
are normalized by the mean daily page view counts for
all U.S. listed firms provided by Yahoo Finance during
our sample period. Only the available days of page
views are used during July 2014 rather than 30 days as
the web-traffic data starts on July 1st 2014;
_ The natural log of one plus firm i's total number of Yahoo Finance
normalized Analyst Opinion page views from Yahoo
Finance on day t. Page views are normalized by the
mean daily page view counts for all U.S. listed firms
provided by Yahoo Finance during our sample period;
(continued)

35
Variable Definition Data Source
AO_PAST30t The natural log of one plus firm i's total number of Yahoo Finance
normalized trailing 30-day average Analyst Opinion
page views from Yahoo Finance on day t-1. Page views
are normalized by the mean daily page view counts for
all U.S. listed firms provided by Yahoo Finance during
our sample period. Only the available days of page
views are used during July 2014 rather than 30 days as
the web-traffic data starts on July 1st 2014;
_ The natural log of one plus firm i's total number of Yahoo Finance
normalized Analyst Estimates and Analyst Opinion page
views from Yahoo Finance on day t. Page views are
normalized by the mean daily page view counts for all
U.S. listed firms provided by Yahoo Finance during our
sample period;
AT_PAST30t The natural log of one plus firm i's total number of Yahoo Finance
normalized trailing 30-day average Analyst Estimates
and Analyst Opinion page views from Yahoo Finance
on day t-1. Page views are normalized by the mean daily
page view counts for all U.S. listed firms provided by
Yahoo Finance during our sample period. Only the
available days of page views are used during July 2014
rather than 30 days as the web-traffic data starts on July
1st 2014;
"1" if a bold analyst issues an EPS forecast for firm i on FactSet:
day t, "0" otherwise. An analyst is considered a bold FE_BROKER_ESTIMATE
analyst if s/he is ranked in the top 25% of all analysts in
terms of the average boldness score using the data
between 2012/1/1 and 2014/6/30. Boldness score is
calculated following Hong, Kubik, and Solomon (2000).
Specifically, for each firm is fiscal period k earnings
forecast between 2012/1/1 and 2014/6/30, we calculate a
measure of consensus forecast
,,, for each analyst
a, where -a is the set of all analysts other than analyst a
who produce an EPS forecast for firm i in on day t.
Analyst as forecast boldness for firm is fiscal period k
earnings forecast on day t is the absolute value of the
difference between ,,, and
,,, . A ranking
,,, =1, 2. N is then assigned to each analyst-
forecast and the boldest analyst receives the first rank,
and the least bold analyst receives the highest rank. We
then calculate a boldness score for analyst as forecast
for firm is fiscal period k on day t, ,,, = 100
,,, 1
100 . Lastly, the boldness
,, 1
score per analyst-forecast is averaged among all
forecasts per analyst to calculate the average boldness
score for each analyst. Higher values correspond to
more bold analysts.
The ratio of book value of equity to market FactSet: FF_PBK
capitalization for firm i on day t;
(continued)

36
Variable Definition Data Source
_ "1" if there is a change in management guidance for EPS FactSet: FE_GUIDANCE
or revenue, annual or quarterly, for firm i between day t FF_EPS_RPT_DATE
and day t-1, "0" otherwise and if the firm has an
earnings announcement on days t-3 to t+3;
_+ "1" if CHG_GUIDE equals "1" on day t+j, j= -1,1, and FactSet: FE_GUIDANCE
zero otherwise; FF_EPS_RPT_DATE
_ The short interest scaled by shares outstanding on day t FactSet:
minus the short interest scaled by shares outstanding for FSI_SI_ANY_EXCHG
firm i on day t-1; FF_COM_SHS_OUT
"1" if there is a decrease in the number of analysts FactSet:
following firm i between day t and day t-1, "0" FE_ESTIMATE:NEST
otherwise;
_ "1" if firm i announces its earnings on day t, "0" FactSet: FF_EPS_RPT_DATE
otherwise;
_+ "1" if EARN_ANN equals "1" on day t+j, j= -1,1, and FactSet: FF_EPS_RPT_DATE
zero otherwise;
__ "1" if firm i announces its earnings and has a change in FactSet: FE_GUIDANCE
management guidance on day t, "0" otherwise; FF_EPS_RPT_DATE
__ "1" if firm i announces its earnings and does not have a FactSet: FE_GUIDANCE
change in management guidance on day t, "0" otherwise; FF_EPS_RPT_DATE
4 "1" if firm i files one or more Form 4 on day t, "0" EDGAR Daily Index File
otherwise and if the firm has an earnings announcement
on days t-3 to t+3;
4+ "1" if FORM4 equals "1" on day t+j, j= -1,1, and zero EDGAR Daily Index File
otherwise;
"1" if there is an increase in the number of analysts FactSet:
following firm i between day t and day t-1, "0" FE_ESTIMATE:NEST
otherwise;
The ratio of debt to total assets for firm i on day t; FactSet: FF_DEBT_ASSETS
The natural log of firm i's market capitalization on day t; FactSet:
P_MARKET_VAL_SEC
The natural log of one plus the total number of media FactSet:
articles that mention firm i on day t; NEWS_HEADLINE_COUNT
_ "1" if there is at least one media article that mentions FactSet:
firm i on day t, "0" otherwise; NEWS_HEADLINE_COUNT
_ The natural log of one plus firm i's total number of Yahoo Finance
normalized other page views from Yahoo Finance on
day t. Other page views is the difference between total
page views and total Analyst Estimates/Opinion page
views. Page views are normalized by the mean daily
page view counts for all U.S. listed firms provided by
Yahoo Finance during our sample period;
__ The standard deviation of firm i's daily returns over the FactSet: P_TOTAL_RETURN
past 6 months ending on day t-1;
The natural log of one plus the total number of analyst FactSet:
reports for firm i on day t; FE_BROKER_ESTIMATE
(continued)

37
Variable Definition Data Source
The ratio of net income to total assets for firm i on day t; FactSet: FF_ROA
and,

"1" if a timely analyst issues an EPS forecast for firm i FactSet:

on day t, "0" otherwise. An analyst is considered a FE_BROKER_ESTIMATE
timely analyst if s/he is ranked in the top 25% of all
analysts in terms of the average leader-follower ratio
(LFR) using the data between 2012/1/1 and 2014/6/30.
LFR is calculated following Cooper, Day, and Lewis
(2001). Specifically, for each analyst-forecast issued
between 2012/1/1 and 2014/6/30, we compare the
number of days between this forecast and the forecasts
by other analysts that precede and follow it. Leading
Daysaikt (Following Daysaikt) equals the total number of
days between analyst as forecast of firm is fiscal
period k earnings issued on day t and the two most
recent preceding (following) forecasts of firm is fiscal
period k earnings by any other analyst. The LFR for
each analyst-forecast is Leading Daysaikt scaled by
Following Daysaikt. Lastly, the LFR per analyst-forecast
is averaged among all forecasts per analyst to calculate
the average LFR ratio for each analyst.

38
 FIGURE 1
Example of a Yahoo Finance Firm-Specific Homepage

This figure illustrates an example of a typical Yahoo Finance (finance.yahoo.com) firm-specific homepage,
providing summary stock market and headline information, as well as access to another 23 firm-specific pages
containing financial, market, and analyst data.

39
 FIGURE 2
Example of a Yahoo Finance Firm-Specific Analyst Opinion Web Page

This figure illustrates an example of a typical Yahoo Finance Analyst Opinion firm-specific web page, which
provides recommendation and target price summary statistics, as well as details of recent broker-specific ratings
changes.

40
 FIGURE 3
Example of a Yahoo Finance Firm-Specific Analyst Estimates Web Page

This figure illustrates an example of a typical Yahoo Finance Analyst Estimates firm-specific web page, which
provides consensus estimates of earnings, revenue, EPS, and growth.

41
 FIGURE 4
Panel A: Analyst Estimates Page Views Surrounding Information Events

Panel B: Analyst Opinion Page Views Surrounding Information Events

Panel C: Other Page Views Surrounding Information Events

This figure plots investor demand for analyst information and other information relative to key information events:
earnings announcements, management guidance changes, Forms 8-K, 4, 10-K, and 10-Q. Management guidance
changes, Forms 8-K, 4, 10-K, and 10-Q are those that do not coincide with earnings announcements. Panel A
illustrates mean abnormal (percent change from sample mean) Analyst Estimates page views (consensus EPS,
revenue and long term growth) relative to these events, and we note that the increase in page views is highest for
guidance changes and earnings announcements. The increase in demand is visible the day prior to the event for
earnings announcements, and excess demand continues for several days after the event in the case of guidance
changes and earnings announcements. Panel B illustrates mean Analyst Opinion page views (consensus ratings,
target prices, and detailed recent rating changes), and we note that the increase in page views surrounding
information events is less pronounced compared to the increase for Analyst Estimates. Panel C illustrates the

42
increase in demand for other page views (all page views less Analyst Estimates and Analyst Opinions). Again the
demand for other information is highest for earnings announcements and guidance changes, though the increase is
not as pronounced as for Analyst Estimate page views.

43
 TABLE 1
Descriptive Statistics

Std.
N Mean Min 5% 25% 50% 75% 95% Max
Dev.
Page Views (normalized by the mean total page views per day)
_ (unlogged) 1,353,030 0.019 0.057 0.000 0.000 0.002 0.005 0.015 0.073 7.668
_ (unlogged) 1,353,030 0.010 0.032 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.003 0.008 0.042 3.071
_ (unlogged) 1,353,030 0.008 0.026 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.002 0.007 0.032 4.754
_ (unlogged) 1,353,030 1.098 6.962 0.000 0.019 0.072 0.186 0.571 4.031 1507.760
_ 1,353,030 0.017 0.044 0.000 0.000 0.002 0.005 0.015 0.070 2.160
_ 1,353,030 0.010 0.027 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.003 0.008 0.041 1.404
_ 1,353,030 0.008 0.022 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.002 0.007 0.032 1.750
_ 1,353,030 0.394 0.573 0.000 0.019 0.070 0.170 0.452 1.616 7.319
Information Events
_ 1,353,030 0.011 0.104 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000
__ 1,353,030 0.002 0.041 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000
__ 1,353,030 0.009 0.096 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000
10 1,353,030 0.001 0.038 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000
10 1,353,030 0.003 0.050 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000
8 1,353,030 0.020 0.138 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000
4 1,353,030 0.039 0.194 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000
_ 1,353,030 0.000 0.017 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000
Visibility
1,353,030 0.010 0.101 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000
1,353,030 0.010 0.097 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000
1,353,030 0.325 0.575 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.693 1.609 2.833
_ 1,353,030 0.299 0.458 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
_ 1,353,030 0.000 0.001 -0.020 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.021
__ 1,353,030 0.007 0.013 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.009 0.033 0.077
__ 1,353,030 -0.007 0.012 -0.069 -0.032 -0.009 -0.001 0.000 0.000 0.000
Analyst Characteristics
_ 1,353,030 0.007 0.085 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000
1,353,030 0.007 0.086 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000
1,353,030 0.012 0.109 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000
(continued)

44
 Std.
N Mean Min 5% 25% 50% 75% 95% Max
Dev.
Controls
1,353,030 0.153 0.387 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.099 3.932
1,353,030 20.979 1.853 17.129 18.054 19.617 20.916 22.219 24.217 25.506
1,353,030 -0.018 0.193 -1.070 -0.425 -0.009 0.024 0.063 0.151 0.288
1,353,030 0.232 0.206 0.000 0.000 0.041 0.200 0.376 0.618 0.936
1,353,030 0.543 0.416 0.022 0.085 0.247 0.442 0.735 1.277 2.411
__ 1,353,030 0.023 0.013 0.008 0.009 0.014 0.019 0.028 0.049 0.077

This table presents the firm-day descriptive statistics for all variables. The total unique number of firms is 4,068. See the Appendix for variable definitions.

45
 TABLE 2
Correlation Matrix

Variable (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24) (25)
(1) AT_PAGEVIEW -
(2) AO_PAGEVIEW 0.98 -
(3) AE_PAGEVIEW 0.97 0.92 -
(4) EARN_ANN 0.11 0.06 0.16 -
(5) 10K 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 -
(6) 10Q 0.00 0.00 0.00 -0.01 0.00 -
(7) 8K 0.04 0.04 0.03 -0.01 0.01 0.02 -
(8) FORM4 0.04 0.04 0.04 -0.02 0.03 0.02 0.06 -
(9) CHG_GUIDE 0.02 0.01 0.03 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.07 0.00 -
(10) INITIATION 0.07 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.01 -
(11) DROP 0.05 0.04 0.04 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.02 0.01 0.01 -0.01 -
(12) MEDIA 0.28 0.26 0.28 0.30 0.07 0.09 0.24 0.34 0.04 0.08 0.05 -
(13) CHG_SHORT 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 -
(14) AB_RET_P 0.06 0.05 0.06 0.04 0.00 0.00 0.02 -0.01 0.01 0.02 0.00 0.03 0.00 -
(15) AB_RET_N -0.05 -0.04 -0.05 -0.04 0.00 0.01 -0.01 0.02 -0.01 -0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.30 -
(16) ALL_STAR 0.13 0.12 0.15 0.14 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.02 0.10 0.02 0.12 0.00 0.02 -0.02 -
(17) BOLD 0.10 0.08 0.11 0.16 0.00 0.00 0.01 -0.01 0.05 0.14 0.02 0.12 0.00 0.05 -0.04 0.17 -
(18) TIMELY 0.10 0.08 0.12 0.20 0.00 0.00 0.01 -0.01 0.06 0.16 0.02 0.15 0.00 0.05 -0.04 0.23 0.41 -
(19) REPORT 0.28 0.26 0.28 0.21 0.01 0.01 0.06 0.03 0.05 0.20 0.06 0.31 0.00 0.05 -0.04 0.32 0.32 0.39 -
(20) OT_PAGEVIEW 0.81 0.80 0.74 0.10 0.01 0.01 0.06 0.06 0.02 0.07 0.05 0.32 0.01 0.11 -0.10 0.12 0.09 0.10 0.31 -
(21) MCAP 0.35 0.33 0.31 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.05 0.00 0.05 0.04 0.22 0.00 -0.13 0.17 0.09 0.03 0.05 0.27 0.33 -
(22) ROA 0.06 0.04 0.08 0.00 0.00 0.01 -0.01 0.02 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.04 0.00 -0.13 0.15 0.03 0.01 0.02 0.08 -0.10 0.39 -
(23) LEV 0.05 0.05 0.03 0.00 0.00 -0.01 0.02 -0.01 0.00 0.02 0.02 0.04 0.00 -0.04 0.03 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.03 0.20 0.12 -
(24) BTM -0.07 -0.06 -0.07 0.00 0.00 0.00 -0.01 -0.04 0.00 -0.01 0.00 -0.04 0.00 0.03 -0.05 -0.02 0.00 -0.02 -0.02 -0.08 -0.24 0.05 0.01 -
(25) PAST_RET_VOL 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 -0.01 0.01 -0.03 0.00 -0.01 -0.01 -0.05 0.00 0.23 -0.26 -0.03 0.00 -0.02 -0.07 0.18 -0.50 -0.53 -0.15 0.06 -

This table presents Pearson correlation coefficients for all firm-day observations. The insignificant correlation coefficients are bolded. See the Appendix for
variable definitions.

46
 TABLE 3
Univariate Analysis of Analyst Total Page Views

AT_PAGEVIEWt AT_PAGEVIEWt
Event N Mean Event N Mean Ratio in Means Diff. in Mean t-val
Information Events
_ =1 14,827 0.063 _ =0 1,338,203 0.017 3.704 0.046 127.73
__ =1 2,256 0.084 __ =0 1,350,774 0.017 4.864 0.067 72.89
__ =1 12,571 0.059 __ =0 1,340,459 0.017 3.453 0.042 107.29
10 =1 2,000 0.024 10 =0 1,351,030 0.017 1.382 0.007 6.81
10 =1 3,459 0.021 10 =0 1,349,571 0.017 1.195 0.003 4.57
8 =1 26,400 0.029 8 =0 1,326,630 0.017 1.667 0.012 42.32
4 =1 53,115 0.027 4 =0 1,299,915 0.017 1.583 0.010 51.46
_ =1 372 0.072 _ =0 1,352,658 0.017 4.116 0.054 23.98
Visibility
=1 14,053 0.047 =0 1,338,977 0.017 2.708 0.029 79.21
=1 12,862 0.038 =0 1,340,168 0.017 2.194 0.021 53.25
MEDIA_DUMt=1 404,093 0.032 MEDIA_DUMt=0 948,937 0.011 2.772 0.020 251.98
_ >0 47,778 0.022 _ <=0 1,305,252 0.017 1.295 0.005 25.04
__ >0 652,850 0.018 __ <0 700,180 0.017 1.039 0.001 8.89
Analyst Characteristics
_ =1 9,826 0.086 _ =0 1,343,204 0.017 5.095 0.070 158.25
=1 10,049 0.066 =0 1,342,981 0.017 3.845 0.049 111.60
=1 16,214 0.058 =0 1,336,816 0.017 3.442 0.041 120.52

This table presents the univariate analysis of Analyst Total page views (_ ) by information events, visibility, and analyst characteristics. Ratio in
Means refers to the ratio of mean analyst total page views when the indicator equals one scaled by the ratio of mean analyst total page views when the indicator
equals zero. T-val refers to t-statistics obtained from two-sided tests of differences in means. See the Appendix for variable definitions.

47
 TABLE 4
Analyst Page Views and Information Events

Panel A: Regressions
(1) (2) (3)
Dependent Variable AT_PAGEVIEWt
Coeff. t-stat Coeff. t-stat Coeff. t-stat
Intercept 0.0441*** 9.77 0.0433*** 9.76 0.0441*** 9.78
Information Events
_1 0.0078*** 22.48
_ 0.0260*** 25.04 0.0269*** 25.22
_+1 0.0141*** 18.01
__ 0.0353*** 14.14
__ 0.0244*** 21.94
81 -0.0003 -1.62
8 0.0010*** 3.54 0.0013*** 4.75 0.0010*** 3.56
8+1 0.0005** 2.23
101 -0.0014*** -3.23
10 -0.0018*** -5.14 -0.0014*** -4.23 -0.0018*** -5.12
10+1 -0.0016*** -3.84
101 -0.0006* -1.71
10 -0.0016*** -4.31 -0.0009** -2.50 -0.0016*** -4.34
10+1 -0.0013*** -3.73
41 -0.0001 -0.68
4 -0.0004** -2.19 -0.0001 -0.32 -0.0004** -2.17
4+1 -0.0007*** -3.89
_1 0.0023* 1.71
_ 0.0309*** 6.38 0.0314*** 6.44 0.0309*** 6.39
_+1 0.0285*** 6.40
Controls
OT_PAGEVIEWt 0.0347*** 23.28 0.0341*** 23.04 0.0346*** 23.26
AT_PAST30t 0.6025*** 16.69 0.6086*** 17.08 0.6029*** 16.71
-0.0020*** -10.06 -0.0020*** -10.05 -0.0020*** -10.07
0.0113*** 9.93 0.0111*** 9.90 0.0113*** 9.92
-0.0000 -0.06 -0.0000 -0.09 -0.0000 -0.07
-0.0011*** -3.34 -0.0011*** -3.35 -0.0011*** -3.30
__ -0.3291*** -16.78 -0.3234*** -16.75 -0.3288*** -16.76

Firm clustering Yes Yes Yes

Week FE Yes Yes Yes
Day-of-week FE Yes Yes Yes
Adj 2 0.80 0.80 0.80
N 1,353,030 1,353,030 1,353,030

Panel B: P-value for the F-test on the coefficients in Panel A, Column 3

__ __ 8 10 10 4
__
__ < 0.01
8 < 0.01 < 0.01
10 < 0.01 < 0.01 < 0.01
10 < 0.01 < 0.01 < 0.01 0.84
4 < 0.01 < 0.01 < 0.01 < 0.01 < 0.01
_ < 0.01 < 0.01 < 0.01 < 0.01 < 0.01 < 0.01

This table presents the relation between investor demand for total analyst information and information events. The
demand for total analyst information (_ ) is measured by the natural log of one plus firm i's total
number of normalized Analyst Estimates and Analyst Opinion page views from Yahoo Finance on day t. Page views

48
are normalized by the mean daily page view counts for all U.S. listed firms provided by Yahoo Finance during our
sample period. Panel A presents the regression results. Column (1) includes six information events on day t:
earnings announcements, changes in management guidance, Forms 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, and 4. Column (2) further
includes the day before and the day after the information events. For example, _+ , j=-1, 1 equals one if
firm i has an earnings announcement on day t+j, and zero otherwise. Column (3) splits the indicator for earnings
announcements (_ ) into observations with changes in management EPS guidance (__ ) and
without changes in management EPS guidance (__ ) on day t.*, **, *** indicate significance at the
0.10, 0.05, and 0.01 levels, respectively, using two-tailed tests. T-statistics and p-values are calculated using
clustered standard errors by firm. Week fixed effects and day-of-week fixed effects are included in the regressions.
Panel B presents the p-values for the F-tests on the pairwise differences of the coefficients for information events in
Panel A Column (3). See the Appendix for variable definitions.

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 TABLE 5
Analyst Estimate/Opinion Page Views and Information Events

(1) (2) (3)

Dependent Variable _ _ _
Coeff. t-stat Coeff. t-stat Coeff. t-stat
Intercept 0.0235*** 10.12 0.0281*** 9.90 -0.0051*** -10.47
Information Events
_ 0.0249*** 29.68 0.0041*** 8.18 0.0201*** 34.82
10 0.0003** 2.16 0.0009*** 4.80 -0.0006*** -6.56
10 -0.0015*** -7.29 -0.0006*** -2.74 -0.0011*** -7.51
8 -0.0013*** -6.00 -0.0006** -2.50 -0.0008*** -5.87
4 -0.0006*** -5.30 0.0000 0.21 -0.0007*** -11.79
_ 0.0245*** 7.39 0.0103*** 3.92 0.0134*** 10.17
Controls
OT_PAGEVIEWt 0.0155*** 21.22 0.0195*** 21.09 -0.0028*** -12.69
PAST30t 0.6363*** 16.15 0.6589*** 17.20 0.8574*** 74.13
-0.0011*** -10.38 -0.0013*** -10.24 0.0002*** 10.62
0.0065*** 10.84 0.0050*** 7.96 0.0002** 2.15
-0.0005* -1.66 0.0003 0.91 -0.0003*** -4.78
-0.0008*** -5.09 -0.0004** -2.14 -0.0001** -2.14
__ -0.1499*** -14.53 -0.2072*** -17.91 0.0405*** 12.01

Firm clustering Yes Yes Yes

Week FE Yes Yes Yes
Day-of-week FE Yes Yes Yes
Adj 2 0.72 0.80 0.57
N 1,353,030 1,353,030 1,353,030

This table presents the relation between investor demand for analyst estimates (Column 1) and analyst opinions
(Column 2), and information events. The demand for analyst estimates ( _ )/opinions
( _ ) is measured by the natural log of one plus firm i's total number of normalized Analyst
Estimate/Analyst Opinion page views from Yahoo Finance on day t. Page views are normalized by the mean daily
page view counts for all U.S. listed firms provided by Yahoo Finance during our sample period. Column (3) uses the
difference between analyst estimates page views and the analyst opinions page views as the dependent variable and
tests whether the investor demand on information event days differs between analyst estimates and analyst opinions
page views. PAST30t refers to AE_PAST30t, AO_PAST30t, and AE-AO_PAST30t, for Columns (1)-(3), respectively.
*, **, *** indicate significance at the 0.10, 0.05, and 0.01 levels, respectively, using two-tailed tests. T-statistics and
p-values are calculated using clustered standard errors by firm. Week fixed effects and day-of-week fixed effects are
included in the regressions. See the Appendix for variable definitions.

50
 TABLE 6
Analyst Page Views, Visibility, and Analyst Characteristics

Panel A: No Interactions with Media

(1) (2) (3)
Dependent Variable _ _ _
Coeff. t-stat Coeff. t-stat Coeff. t-stat
Intercept 0.0481*** 10.49 0.0254*** 10.89 0.0304*** 10.37
Visibility
0.0016*** 3.96 0.0008*** 3.29 0.0010*** 3.75
0.0025*** 6.27 0.0013*** 5.75 0.0016*** 6.01
0.0016*** 9.60 0.0008*** 10.69 0.0009*** 8.77
_ -0.0243 -1.30 -0.0214** -2.07 -0.0080 -0.71
__ 0.0943*** 13.83 0.0514*** 16.03 0.0527*** 12.07
__ -0.1005*** -15.84 -0.0570*** -17.43 -0.0551*** -14.21
Analyst Characteristics
_ 0.0116*** 10.31 0.0082*** 10.86 0.0057*** 8.57
0.0067*** 6.95 0.0053*** 8.06 0.0030*** 5.18
0.0015** 2.55 0.0020*** 5.53 -0.0004 -1.02
Information Events
_ 0.0179*** 25.56 0.0200*** 30.19 -0.0002 -0.68
10 -0.0009*** -3.22 -0.0007*** -4.62 -0.0002 -1.09
10 -0.0033*** -8.57 -0.0023*** -10.09 -0.0015*** -6.27
8 -0.0028*** -6.68 -0.0018*** -8.00 -0.0013*** -4.95
4 -0.0016*** -6.65 -0.0012*** -8.97 -0.0007*** -4.47
_ 0.0200*** 4.30 0.0175*** 5.49 0.0047* 1.85
Controls
REPORTt 0.0043*** 12.78 0.0023*** 13.95 0.0026*** 10.51
OT_PAGEVIEWt 0.0323*** 21.75 0.0142*** 19.95 0.0182*** 19.67
PAST30t 0.6187*** 17.85 0.6512*** 17.36 0.6729*** 18.30
-0.0022*** -10.84 -0.0012*** -11.22 -0.0014*** -10.73
0.0108*** 10.17 0.0062*** 11.07 0.0048*** 8.17
-0.0002 -0.40 -0.0005** -2.05 0.0002 0.57
-0.0014*** -4.49 -0.0010*** -6.41 -0.0006*** -3.21
__ -0.3603*** -18.78 -0.1673*** -16.62 -0.2244*** -19.60
Firm clustering Yes Yes Yes
Week FE Yes Yes Yes
Day-of-week FE Yes Yes Yes
Adj 2 0.84 0.72 0.80
N 1,353,030 1,353,030 1,353,030

51
 Panel B: Interactions with Media
(1) (2) (3)
Dependent Variable _ _ _
Coeff. t-stat Coeff. t-stat Coeff. t-stat
Intercept 0.0472*** 10.48 0.0248*** 10.87 0.0299*** 10.41
Visibility
0.0017*** 4.06 0.0008*** 3.38 0.0010*** 3.85
0.0024*** 6.06 0.0012*** 5.48 0.0016*** 5.85
0.0013*** 8.10 0.0006*** 8.24 0.0007*** 7.50
_ -0.0253 -1.36 -0.0221** -2.14 -0.0087 -0.77
__ 0.0930*** 13.74 0.0505*** 15.87 0.0520*** 12.02
__ -0.0988*** -15.73 -0.0558*** -17.30 -0.0542*** -14.15
Analyst Characteristics
_ -0.0068*** -6.32 -0.0046*** -6.54 -0.0041*** -5.92
-0.0032*** -3.39 -0.0013** -2.04 -0.0031*** -4.98
-0.0013** -2.42 0.0002 0.75 -0.0019*** -5.75
_ * 0.0166*** 10.72 0.0115*** 10.80 0.0089*** 9.01
* 0.0086*** 6.03 0.0057*** 5.69 0.0053*** 5.89
* 0.0018** 2.38 0.0011** 2.22 0.0010** 2.18
Information Events
_ 0.0147*** 22.34 0.0178*** 29.26 -0.0020*** -6.30
10 -0.0008*** -2.98 -0.0006*** -4.33 -0.0002 -0.86
10 -0.0033*** -8.40 -0.0022*** -9.88 -0.0014*** -6.12
8 -0.0027*** -6.49 -0.0018*** -7.76 -0.0012*** -4.77
4 -0.0015*** -6.16 -0.0011*** -8.45 -0.0006*** -3.97
_ 0.0163*** 3.62 0.0151*** 4.85 0.0025 1.03
Controls
REPORT 0.0041*** 12.47 0.0021*** 13.53 0.0025*** 10.37
OT_PAGEVIEWt 0.0321*** 21.76 0.0142*** 19.94 0.0181*** 19.67
PAST30t 0.6190*** 17.96 0.6511*** 17.47 0.6732*** 18.41
-0.0022*** -10.83 -0.0012*** -11.21 -0.0014*** -10.77
0.0108*** 10.19 0.0062*** 11.11 0.0048*** 8.19
-0.0002 -0.33 -0.0005** -1.96 0.0002 0.64
-0.0014*** -4.42 -0.0010*** -6.31 -0.0006*** -3.14
__ -0.3559*** -18.86 -0.1643*** -16.70 -0.2219*** -19.73
Firm clustering Yes Yes Yes
Week FE Yes Yes Yes
Day-of-week FE Yes Yes Yes
Adj 2 0.81 0.72 0.80
N 1,353,030 1,353,030 1,353,030

This table presents the relation between investor demand for analyst estimates and opinions, and visibility and
analyst characteristics. Columns (1)-(3) show the results for the demand for total analyst information, analyst
estimates, and analyst opinions, respectively. The demand for total analyst information ( _ ) is
measured by the natural log of one plus firm i's total number of normalized Analyst Estimates and Analyst Opinion
page views from Yahoo Finance on day t. Page views are normalized by the mean daily page view counts for all
U.S. listed firms provided by Yahoo Finance during our sample period. Panel A presents regressions where there are
no media and analyst characteristics interactions. Panel B presents regressions where there are media and analyst
characteristic interactions in order to test whether the analyst characteristic findings are more pronounced in the
presence of media. PAST30t refers to AT_PAST30t, AE_PAST30t, and AO_PAST30t, for Columns (1)-(3),
respectively. *, **, *** indicate significance at the 0.10, 0.05, and 0.01 levels, respectively, using two-tailed tests.
T-statistics and p-values are calculated using clustered standard errors by firm. Week fixed effects and day-of-week
fixed effects are included in the regressions. See the Appendix for variable definitions.

52
 TABLE 7
Descriptive Statistics of Page Views by Page Views Category

Panel A: Mean Value of Page Views by Category

MESSAGE KEY HISTORICAL ALL
Event N SUMMARY BOARD ANALYST STATISTICS PRICES OPTIONS PROFILE OTHER
_ 1,353,030 0.802 0.197 0.019 0.016 0.013 0.012 0.012 0.046
_ =1 14,827 3.587 0.757 0.074 0.046 0.034 0.063 0.039 0.149
__ =1 2,256 4.163 0.615 0.097 0.070 0.045 0.061 0.066 0.205
__ =1 12,571 3.484 0.783 0.070 0.041 0.032 0.064 0.035 0.139
10 =1 2,000 1.177 0.196 0.026 0.022 0.020 0.015 0.017 0.063
10 =1 3,459 1.131 0.186 0.023 0.019 0.018 0.017 0.013 0.060
8 =1 26,400 1.636 0.429 0.032 0.030 0.025 0.021 0.026 0.092
4 =1 53,115 1.554 0.283 0.030 0.024 0.022 0.024 0.018 0.080
_ =1 372 3.682 0.622 0.085 0.080 0.041 0.055 0.063 0.205
__ =1 1,257,450 0.722 0.183 0.017 0.015 0.012 0.011 0.011 0.043

Panel B: Mean Value of Ratios of Total Analysts Page Views to Other Page Views
N ANALYST to SEC FILINGS ANALYST to FINANCIAL STATEMENTS ANALYST to NEWS
_ 1,353,030 6.6 2.3 3.9
_ =1 14,827 17.4 4.3 4.2
__ =1 2,256 19.9 4.2 3.9
__ =1 12,571 17.0 4.3 4.2
10 =1 2,000 8.2 2.4 4.1
10 =1 3,459 7.5 2.1 3.6
8 =1 26,400 9.7 2.4 3.8
4 =1 53,115 9.9 2.4 4.3
_ =1 372 19.6 3.1 4.1
__ =1 1,257,450 6.3 2.3 3.9

This table presents the descriptive statistics of page views for each information event by page views category. Panel A presents the mean value of page views for
the top eight categories ranked by the mean value of page views including summary, message board, total analyst, key statistics, historical prices, options, profile,

53
and all other. Panel B presents the mean value of ratios of total analysts page views to SEC filings, financial statement, and news page views, respectively. All
ratios are significantly different from 1 (p < 0.01). See the Appendix for variable definitions.

54
 TABLE 8
High Page Views and Analyst Reports

Panel A: Number of Observations with High Page Views

Obs. with high page views but no analyst reports on day t or day t+1 91,996 61.7%
Obs. with high page views and have analyst reports on day t or day t+1 57,016 38.3%
Total obs. with high page views 149,012
Total sample obs. 1,353,030 11.0%

Panel B: Number of Observations for High Page Views by Information Events

High Page Views Non-High Page Views Total
(1) (2) % With (3) (4) % With
Sum (1) to (4)
No Reports Reports Reports No Reports Reports Reports
_ 23,917 34,087 58.5% 211,381 134,708 38.9% 404,093
4 3,422 1,606 31.9% 31,636 16,451 34.2% 53,115
8 2,023 2,133 51.3% 13,677 8,567 38.5% 26,400
_ 541 11,213 95.4% 452 2,621 85.3% 14,827
10 174 73 29.6% 2,089 1,123 35.0% 3,459
10 83 54 39.4% 1,207 656 35.2% 2,000
_ 16 249 94.0% 11 96 89.7% 372

This table reports the number of firm-day observations for the High Page Views and Non-High Page Views samples. The High
Page Views sample refers to observations with Analyst Total page views on day t (_ ) that are greater than two
times the trailing 30-day average Analyst Total page views on day t-1 (AT_PAST30t). Panel A shows the number of High Page
Views firm-day observations with or without analyst reports on day t and day t+1. Panel B shows the distribution of High Page
Views and Non-High Page Views firm-day observations by each major information event day. See the Appendix for variable
definitions.

55