We investigate analysts’ use of stock returns and other analysts’ forecast revisions in
revising their own forecasts after an earnings announcement. We find that analysts
respond more strongly to these signals when the signals are more informative about
future earnings changes. Although analysts underreact to these signals on average, we
find that analysts who are most sensitive to signal informativeness achieve superior
forecast accuracy relative to their peers and have a greater influence on the market. The
results suggest that the ability to extract information from the actions of others serves as
one source of analyst expertise