The Analysts Miss Again

There was a fascinating article on Bloomberg News yesterday pointing out that when it comes to the stock market, no one really knows what exactly the future will hold. Bloomberg went back and looked at stock analysts' recommendations from the beginning of the year and found that the stocks they liked the least have in many cases performed the best.

Wall Street was especially bearish on banks back then. Two banking companies were among the top ten stocks with the highest percentage of sell ratings: Zions Bancorporation, in Salt Lake City, and Huntington Bancshares, in Columbus, Ohio. Zions is up 86 percent on the year, and Huntington is up 66 percent. In that top ten group, seven of the stocks have advanced in 2010, despite the fact that the S&P 500 overall is down slightly on the year.

At the other end of the scale, Bloomberg found that Coca-Cola had 14 buy ratings and only one sell rating at the beginning of the year, but it's lost 8 percent of its value in 2010. Pfizer was recommended by 81 percent of the analysts Bloomberg found, but it's dropped 17 percent this year. Not that it makes sense to consciously go against the recommendation of Wall Street, but this just goes to show once again that when it comes to stocks, you never know.