How do experts forecasts about the stock market influence my own expectations?

What is it about?

We let a sample of people in the finance industry and a sample from the general population (US and UK) make stock market forecasts - for the S&P 500, for example. We then show these forecasts to a different set of people (again: people from the finance industry and laypeople), and let them make forecasts themselves. What does that do? - Laypeople shift their forecasts towards others' forecasts, esp towards experts' fc. - People from the finance industry? Not so much - they rely on their own intuition. What else? Do laypeople think people in the finance industry make better forecasts? Absolutely. Do they really? Not so much. Are they overconfident about their forecasting ability? You bet. Do "experts'" forecasts help laypeople at all? Yes! At least a home bias - investing too much in one's domestic market - seems to be mitigated. It's something.

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Why is it important?

How do experts forecasts about the stock market influence my own expectations? Does it help? Does it improve my investments?

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