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Review of Accounting Studies

, Volume 23, Issue 4, pp 1315–1354 | Cite as

Manager-analyst conversations in earnings conference calls

  • Jason V. Chen
  • Venky Nagar
  • Jordan Schoenfeld
Article
First Online:

Abstract

Prior research finds that intraday stock prices move considerably during the discussion period of earnings conference calls. In this study, we explore what features of the manager-analyst dialogue during the discussion drive these price movements. We textually analyze the tone of managers and analysts and find that intraday prices react significantly to analyst tone, but not to management tone, for the full duration of the discussion. This effect strengthens when analyst tone is relatively negative. We then present intraday visual evidence that analysts are more neutral than managers over the call and that the tones of both parties drift downward as the call progresses. Overall, our findings illustrate how manager-analyst information exchanges evolve on earnings calls and indicate that analysts are the participants on earnings calls whose comments move stock prices during the discussion.

Keywords

Conference calls Corporate disclosure Financial analysts 

JEL Classification

G14 G20 D83 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

We appreciate the helpful comments and suggestions from two anonymous reviewers, Patricia Dechow (the editor), Andrei Shleifer, and seminar participants at Arizona State University, Carnegie Mellon University, HKUST, London Business School, and the University of Michigan. We also thank Justin Lahart for profiling this study in The Wall Street Journal.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.University of IllinoisChicagoUSA
  2. 2.University of MichiganAnn ArborUSA
  3. 3.Georgetown UniversityWashingtonUSA

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