Search

ABSTRACTThis study constructs composite forecasts and evaluates their contextual usefulness as a proxy for investors’ expectations of annual earnings. Our empirical tests utilize composites of three forecast sources: financial analysts’, time-series and security-price based forecasts. Our full sample results support the incremental usefulness of composite forecasts, over and above that of any of the three forecast sources. Moreover, results from partitioned subsamples show that the usefulness of composite forecasts is contextual. Composite forecasts are a better proxy for investors’ earnings expectations when (1) the information environment is relatively poor; or (2) firms experience negative performance in the prior year.

This study investigates the association between industry information uncertainty and stock return comovement within industries. We test two predictions on industry comovement given correlated overweight among investors on past industry returns when there is greater industry-level uncertainty: (1) we find that stocks in high-uncertainty industries are more likely to move with other stocks in the same industry; (2) we find the higher prevalence of industry price continuation in high-uncertainty industries. The results suggest that stock comovement in industries with high information uncertainty is more likely driven by correlated bias in trading activities and is not related to common fundamental shocks.

Objective To study the safety and feasibility of implementation of precise radiotherapy with inducement of an apnea-like condition.Methods Two patients with lung tumors underwent precise radiotherapy under an apnea-like condition. The apnea-like condition was induced 11 times between the two patients for tumor localization and treatment. The changes in the blood oxygen saturation, blood pressure, heart rate, and end-tidal carbon dioxide during the apnea-like periods were observed, and the incidence of adverse reactions was recorded.Results The average apnea-like time was 6.2 minutes (range, 3–9 minutes), and the average radiotherapy time was 4.6 minutes (range, 1–7 minutes). The lowest blood oxygen saturation level was 97%, with a change of <1%. The heart rate and average arterial blood pressure increased during the apnea-like periods. Contact sores appeared on the patients’ posterior pharyngeal wall after the first apnea-like period; no other adverse events occurred.Conclusion Precise radiotherapy under an apnea-like condition is safe and feasible for patients with lung tumors.