About
Welcome to my website! I am a postdoctoral researcher at Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis. I’m fortunate to be advised by Prof. Guofu Zhou and Prof. Asaf Manela. My research interests include (Generative) AI in finance, textual analysis, and sell-side analysts. I enjoy both consuming and producing LLMs for financial applications.
I am on the 2025-2026 job market.
Contact
- llyu@wustl.edu
Education
Washington University in St. Louis, Olin Business School
Postdoctoral Researcher (2024–present)
Visiting Ph.D. Student (2022–2024)Zhejiang University, School of Economics
Ph.D. in Finance (2020–2024)
M.S. in Finance (2018–2020)
B.S. in Finance (2014–2018)
Working Papers
The Value of Information from Sell-side Analysts (Job Market Paper)
Revise & Resubmit at Journal of Financial EconomicsSelected Conferences: 7th Future of Financial Information Conference (2025), AFA Poster Session (2025), AFFECT (2025), 1st Workshop on LLMs & Generative AI in Finance at NYU (2024), SoFiE (2024), 8th Wolfe Research QES (2024)
Abstract
I examine the value of information from sell-side analysts by analyzing a large corpus of their written reports. Using embeddings from state-of-the-art large language models, I show that qualitative information in analyst reports explains above 10% of contemporaneous stock returns out-of-sample, a value that is more economically significant than quantitative forecasts. I then perform a Shapley value decomposition to assess how much each topic within the reports contributes to explaining stock returns. The results show that analysts' income statement analyses account for more than half of the reports' explanatory power. Expressing these findings in economic terms, I estimate that early acquisition of analyst reports can yield significant profits. Analyst information value peaks in the first week following earnings announcements, highlighting their vital role in interpreting new financial data.
Chronologically Consistent Large Language Models (with Songrun He, Asaf Manela, and Jimmy Wu)
Revise & Resubmit at Journal of Financial EconomicsSelected Conferences: NBER Summer Institute (2025), AFA (2026, scheduled), ABFR Webinar (2025), Federal Reserve Board (2025)
Empirical Asset Pricing with Probability Forecasts (with Songrun He and Guofu Zhou)
Selected Conferences: AFA (2025), 8th Wolfe Research QES (2024)
Do Sell-side Analyst Reports Have Investment Value? (solo author)
Winner of 2025 Jack Treynor PrizeSelected Conferences: AFA poster (2026, scheduled)
How Accurate are Survey Forecasts on the Market (with Songrun He, Jiaen Li, and Guofu Zhou)
Chronologically Consistent Generative AI (with Songrun He, Asaf Manela, and Jimmy Wu)
Publications
The Real Effect of Monetary Policy under Uncertainty: Evidence from the Change in Corporate Financing Purposes
with Jiajun Lu, Yizhong Wang, and Yueteng Zhu, Journal of Banking and Finance, 2025Debt Shifting of Zombie Firms: A Supply Chain Perspective
with Yizhong Wang, Journal of Management Sciences in China (管理科学学报), 2025 [in Chinese]