Average Broker Recommendation

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Average Broker Recommendation

Perhaps the most often used (and abused) stock research item is
the Average Broker Recommendation (ABR). Lets dig into the ABR
and learn how to employ this information to make better
investment decisions.

What is the ABR? It is a simple statistic that tries to
synthesize all Wall Street research into an easy to digest form.
Lets take a look at the example of the ABR for General Electric
(GE). Currently there are 17 brokerage firms that have a rating
on GE with 10 Strong Buys, 3 Buys, 4 Holds and 0 Sells. Now we
layer on a weighting system from 1 to 5 with Strong Buy being a
1. This adds up as follows

10 Strong Buys x 1 = 10
3 Buys x 2 = 6
4 Holds x 3 = 12
0 Sell x 4 = 0
0 Strong Sells x 5 = 0
Total points = 28

28 Total Points divided by 17 brokerage firms with ratings =
1.65 ABR

On the surface an ABR of 1.65 sounds pretty good as it is saying
that the average brokerage firm believes that GE is somewhere
between a Strong Buy and a Buy. However, before you place your
life savings in this stock you may want to read this next
paragraph

The ABR of a stock is virtually worthless in helping you pick
good stocks. Hows that? The usual assumption by investors is
that the better the ABR (closer to 1) the more likely they are
to profit with the stock. However, our studies over the years
show a very minor correlation between ABR and results. In fact,
when the market is going poorly, the stocks with the best ABRs
dramatically underperform the stocks with the worst ABRs.

We dont know the exact reason why this is the case, but the
general assumption is that when everyone on the street is
recommending a stock, then it will probably be priced too high
and more likely to fail miserably on any bad news. Conversely,
an out of favor stock will probably already be trading at a
steep discount and any turnaround will create a nice bounce for
the stock.

So, now youre probably thinking to yourself the key to eternal
happiness is to find stocks with the worst ABRs. Unfortunately
we dont recommend that either because over the long haul these
stocks will underperform the average stock (meaning that both
the best and worst ABR stocks underperform the market).

The good news is that we have indeed found an effective way to
invest using the ABR. Our research has uncovered that stocks
with the biggest positive change in ABR over the last month will
outperform the market. We call this the Piggyback Strategy.
Here are the results of the test for the 10 year stretch from
April 1992 to March 2002

Top 10% of ABR Changes = 18.3% average annual return
Average Stock = 10.7% average annual return
Bottom 10% of ABR Changes = 0% average annual return.

There are some great free resources on Zacks.com to take
advantage of these changes in ABR to find some potential winners
as well as stocks to avoid.

Pre-Defined Screen: Best Change in Avg. Broker Rec 1 Week
http://at.zacks.com/?id=1501

Pre-Defined Screen: Worst Change in Avg. Broker Rec 1 Week
http://at.zacks.com/?id=1502

Profit Tracks: Upgrades and Revisions Strategy. These are stocks
that are enjoying both positive estimate revisions and brokerage
rating upgrades. This strategy has handily beat the market over
the last 4 years. Learn more at http://at.zacks.com/?id=1503

Analyst Recommendations Research Report: This research report
gives details on the break down of recommendations for any
stock. Here is a link to view the report for GE. Once there you
can enter any ticker symbol to get the Analyst Recommendations
report for the stock you want. http://at.zacks.com/?id=1504

Want more insight on the Piggybacking Strategy? Mitch Zacks
covers it in detail in his critically acclaimed book Ahead of
the Market. To learn more about this book and special 30%
discount go here http://at.zacks.com/?id=1505

-- From Profit from the Pros - 9/22/04