Significance Of Forecast Precision: The Importance Of Ex-Ante Expectations
I investigate whether the precision of an earnings forecast interacts with environmental uncertainty to affect investors' perceptions of management credibility, future firm growth, and firm stock price. I find that investors respond to a misalignment between environmental uncertainty and forecast precision by lowering their growth expectations and stock price estimates (lowering growth expectations and penalizing price estimates when point forecasts are issued in relatively uncertain environments or range forecasts are issued in relatively certain environments). I find a similar pattern of results for investors' perceptions of management credibility. Perceptions of management credibility mediate the impact of misalignment on investors' perceptions of future growth but do not mediate the impact of misalignment on stock price estimates. My findings have implications for managers issuing forecasts and for investors interpreting forecasts.