Monday, May 19, 2008

WSJ Star Analysts

WSJ published today the result of its annual "Best on the Street" analysts survey. The results are eye-opening in some cases.

One thing to keep top of mind when looking at these results is that even if the market (or a particular industry) is going down precipitously, these analysts should still get positive results because under the WSJ methodology they get credit for correctly rating a stock a sell. If they rate a stock a buy and it goes up or they rate it a sell and it goes down, they get that return added to their results. Conversely if they rate a stock a buy and it goes down or they rate it a sell and it goes up, they get that return subtracted from their results.

First of all, the median score in 9 industries was NEGATIVE. That means that more than half the analysts following that industry failed to correctly identify winners and losers even though they are the alleged experts in those industries.
  • Airlines = -25.1% (this is a particularly egregious one, since you could have made a bundle just by reasoning that the airline industry was going to tank and rate EVERYTHING a sell; this strategy would have put me in SECOND place in the rankings), Kevin Crissey (UBS) scored 42.6%, two other analysts earned anemic 3.6% and 0.8% scores, and the other 9 analysts all got negative scores
  • Banks = -17.3%
  • Broadcast & Entertainment = -13.5%
  • Consumer & Specialy Finance = -66.1%, 22 out of 26 analysts got negative scores (!!)
  • Home Construction & Furnishings = -28.6%
  • Hotels & Casinos = -15.6%
  • Real Estate = -17.4%
  • Restaurants = -29.8%
  • Retailers Broadline & Apparel = -38.1%
  • Retailers Specialty & Service = -15.7%

Ironically, it is also worth mentioning that several of the top analysts have been laid off since the beginning of the year. Gotta love Wall Street.

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