Title: On the Usefulness and Production of Bellwether Firms’ Management Earnings Forecasts
Description: This study examines whether bellwether firms’ management earnings forecasts predict future macroeconomic trends and their propensity to issue these forecasts. I find that forecasts issued by firms producing/sourcing commodities in a large cyclical sector of the economy (defined as bellwether firms) predict real and nominal GDP growth and aggregate earnings for the subsequent four quarters. Forecasts issued towards the end of a quarter and forecasts by small bellwether firms present greater predictive power. When examining the propensity to issue forecasts, I find that bellwether firms provide less frequent disclosures than non-bellwether firms, but bellwether firms owned by many institutional investors issue more frequent disclosures than other bellwether firms. These results suggest that bellwether firms may be reluctant to issue timely disclosures because their investors can learn about them from government announcements. However, institutional investors may pressure bellwether firms to issue these timely disclosures.