The conflict of interest is so big it amazes me! One side of the company is trying to get IB business and the other side is writing "unbiased" reports. What the #@*$?! LMAO
They are in the process of handing out fines to all of wall street over this nonsense. But they did nothing to solve the problem, and there will always be one as long as analysts and IB are under the same roof. Chinese Wall...... Give me a break.
It will take a public outcry to get something like that unfortunately - the SEC does still want the fees and I am sure are all chummy with everyone and just need a scapegoat or two - hopefully that won't suffice for the masses. Me thinks the majority will sit back and whine rather than do anything - meanwhile the key is like always, as traders do your own homework - know where you are wrong - sadly you can't hold everyone's hand. Have a great weekend!
My favorite recommendations are the new ones: "Overweight" and "Underweight". What the hell is that supposed to mean? First off, overweight translates to a buy, and underweight translates to a sell, which is incredibly counterintuitive. Secondly, be a friggin man, and give it a buy or sell, you big baby.
fyi: A large study of 55,000 analyst recommendation from 85 to 98 showed them to be 1) able to pick the best growth stocks over time, but (shock!) 2) very wrong when growth stocks stumble and 3) reluctant to downgrade favorite stocks. But here's the semi-useful thing: analysts are very good at calling when a value stock will switch into a growth stock. In other words, they're good at making a bottom-level contrarian calls. (And any of us could do the same thing if we were privy to the kind of information and disclosure that they have access to.) So analysts can get something right?!? Of course, this is just because they have nothing to lose politically so they're willing to actually be ethical.
True - I was just pointing out that analysts can actually be right when not motivated by greed and politics.
Abby Cohen I saw her on one of the PBS Sunday morning stockmarkets shows a few weeks ago. When someone asked about her bullish stance on the market during a two year free fall, she said something like "Oh no, we were warning investors in March of 2000 that stocks were overvalued" - The funny thing is, she made this arrogant statement as if she told everyone to get into cash. Well if memory serves, she changed here equity weighting from 70% to 65% in here "model" portfolio. That is it! It appears Flabby Abby's memory is about as good as her market calls. Oh, hehehe....... I almost forgot about what else she said. She then went on to say that the market is now 30% undervalued by their "model". ABBY! What the hell "model" are you watching! the S&P 500 is trading at over 30 times trailing earnings! Undervalued by 30%! LOL! I was laughing so hard, I almost cried.
The problem with analysts is that they make so few calls that almost nothing they do can be statistically significant.
I agree. They are not dumb people, ...........well maybe some of them. But they are not in a environment where they can be objective, and keep their job. I think they are good people in a bad system.