The persistence of relative performance in stock recommendations of sell-side financial analysts

Analysts with above-median risk-adjusted performance in the estimation period persistently outperform those with below-median performance in the subsequent holdout period. The annualized risk-adjusted returns of trading strategies based on performance persistence are statistically and economically significant, with a magnitude around 10% even after adjusting for transaction costs and trading delays. This stems mostly from past above-median performers and is not simply a decomposition of previously documented post-event return drift. The results support the hypotheses that more information is contained in above-median performers' recommendations and that investor reaction to these recommendations is incomplete during the event periods.