Analytiker och riktkurser: - Varför bry sig?

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this master thesis is to evaluate how the current share price and market consensus affect security analysts target price and if an investor should pay any attention to it. Empirical data is primarily collected from qualitative interviews with ten security analysts but also from a quantitative e-mail survey. Our main finding is that security analysts are indeed affected by each others earnings forecasts as well as the current share price. This is not strange, it is in several aspects rational. Security analysts has often nothing to gain by standing out too much and not either by spending too much time trying to create their own opinions due to lack of time or the complexity of what is analyzed. Analysts’ work methods and work conditions suggest that investors should be critical to, and not attach great importance to the target price of analysts in their forecasts.