Analyst recommendations and abnormal returns : An event study on OMX Stockholm 30

Abstract: The main purpose of this study is to contribute to the previous literature by evaluating positive changes in analysts' consensus recommendations of the stocks listed in OMXS30. We analyze if new positive changes in consensus recommendations correspond with lower abnormal returns. By conducting an event study and performing a series of different statistical tests, we find that positive changes in analyst consensus provide a short lived negative mean abnormal return in certain cases. We argue that this implies that investors might interpret positive changes as a sell signal. Furthermore, we find some pieces of evidence to suggest that it may actually be changes in the mean target price rather than changes in recommendations that causes the movements in abnormal returns.