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No Signal is Bad Signal: Analyst Silence after On-Site Visit

We study a unique Chinese dataset of equity analysts’ on-site visits to publicly listed companies. We find that analyst silence (no release of report from visit date to the next quarterly earnings announcement) contains information that negatively impacts both stock returns and earnings surprises. The information vacuum created by analyst silence affects market participants differentially, as institutional investors react to such hidden negative information more promptly than retail investors. Finally, we show that agency issues may cause analyst silence and strongly affect the negative impact associated with analyst silence.