Another major research area is analysts’ forecasting abilities and their coverage decisions.
Analysts’ behavior is important to accounting research, because analysts are among
the major infomiation intennediaries who use and interpret accounting data (Schipper
1991). As a result, security prices reflect the results of their analysis. Because the average
prudent investor may lack the time, skill, or resources to analyze and interpret financial
statements, analysts can be a major way in which accounting data become reflected in
security prices. Efficient analysts‘ information processing can facilitate the efficicncy of
security prices, as well. If there are limitations and inefficiencies in the analysts’ information
processing, and if capital markets do not draw on other aspects of the total mix of information
to circumvent analysts’ limited information processing. then prices may not fully
reflect the financial statement data. To the extent that analysts rely on a rich set of publicly
available data, their forecasts can be a natural way to incorporate other infomiation into
the research design of valuation studies (e.g., via the application of the F-O models). An
investigation of analysts‘ forecasts can assess the importance of accounting data relative to
the total mix of information.