Earnings Reporting And Analysts' Earnings Forecasts: The Perceptions Of UK Analysts And Financial Managers

This paper contains the findings from exploratory interviews of a small number of investment professionals and financial managers. In addition it reports the results of a small scale survey of analysts and finance directors that builds on insights yielded by the exploratory interviews. The main purpose of the paper was to explore the interactions that take place between companies and financial analysts around the production of analysts' forecasts. The authors first consider the question of which measure of earnings per share forms the focus of analyst forecasting activity.