And what does HOLD mean anyway ? I really sounds like " I have no freaking idea" so why even bother .
I'm pretty sure it goes like this: Hold --> Sell Buy --> Hold Strong Buy --> Buy There is no SELL since that means you just lost all future business from that company. I had a friend from college who worked at Robertson Stephens as a junior analyst and they were shorting the companies they took public from 1997 - 2000. They were fined heavily by the SEC in 2003 I believe.