Optimism pattern of all-star analysts

This paper studies what drives the change in optimism among all-star analysts. Using unique hand collected data for the entire career of all-star analysts, the paper discovers the optimism patterns in their forecasts and recommendations. One the one hand, while analysts tend to issue more optimistic estimate forecasts, they are less likely to issue optimistic recommendations after becoming all-stars. On the other hand, analysts appear to be less optimistic in terms of both estimates and recommendations after being eliminated from the all-star list. The results are significant controlling for forecast accuracy, firm coverage, and job separation effect. This is the first study to look at both the optimism pattern of all-star analysts, and the effect of demotion from all-star team on analyst optimism.