Quantitative Finance and Economics | 2026
Authors: Attali J.-G.; Salvarani F.
DOI: 10.3934/QFE.2026006
Journal: Quantitative Finance and Economics
Year: 2026
Publisher: American Institute of Mathematical Sciences
Document Type: Article
Open Access: All Open Access; Gold Open Access
Cited by: 0
It is sometimes acknowledged that (sell-side) equity analysts’ recommendations influence investors and therefore market prices. In particular, the S&P 500 is expected to decline (or rise) when analysts revise their targets downward (upward, respectively). Our findings indicate not only that the analysts’ consensus exert no influence on market prices, but also that, conversely, analysts appear to set their target prices based on markets prices. Employing a kinetic theory framework, we model the dynamics of the analysts’ opinions, by taking both the mutual influences shaping price consensus and the dynamics of the actual S&P 500 index level into account. The model is calibrated on a training subset of data and tested on an independent set to assess its predictive power. Our tests show that just three free parameters are enough to accurately predict the one-year average price forecasts of analysts. © 2026 the Author(s)
cointegration; forecast analysis; Kinetic modeling; S&P 500