Beyond Accuracy: Do Analyst Site Visits Boost the Precision of Management Earnings Range Guidance?

ABSTRACT Prior literature extensively documents that financial analysts obtain information from interactions with firm managers; however, the reciprocal information flow from financial analysts to firm managers during these interactions remains underexplored. This paper examines whether managers learn from face‐to‐face interactions with analysts to increase the precision of management earnings range guidance. Using a unique dataset of analyst site visits in China, we find that firms hosting more analyst site visits issue more precise management earnings range guidance. This effect is stronger among firms with greater uncertainty, which is consistent with the concept of managerial learning. Importantly, our evidence contradicts the arguments of social transmission bias and firm managers' impression management. We further demonstrate that firm managers can learn from interactions with both buy‐side analysts and sell‐side analysts to improve their guidance precision. Overall, this study provides robust evidence that firm managers can acquire valuable insights from interactions with financial analysts to issue more precise earnings range guidance to market participants.