Reading more, beyond the bottom line... What the heck is a "Market Outperform" analyst rating anyway?...
They do not. Therefore, we have tried to interpret all of the possible terms you may come across to see the similarities, positive, neutral or negative, in their recommendations for a stock. And we just have to say... "This is so ridiculous!"...
These are POSITIVE ratings for a stock:
Buy: Straightforward recommendation to buy this stock now.
Strong Buy: Enthusiastic (highest rating) recommendation to buy this stock now.
Long-term Buy
Speculative Buy
Aggressive Buy
Top Pick
Above Average
Positive (usually consistent as a 3-rating system on a scale: Positive - Neutral - Negative)
Outperform
Market Outperform (usually consistent as a 3-rating system on a scale: Mkt Outperform - Mkt Perform - Mkt Underperform)
Sector Outperform
Overweight: FF (usually consistent as a 3-rating system on a scale: Overweight - Equal Weight - Underweight)
Accumulate
Add
Hold
Neutral
Average
Market Perform
Sector Perform
Equal Weight
Continued below...
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Sell
Strong Sell
Sector Underperform
Underperform
Reduce
Speculative Investment
Under Weight
Avoid
Sell Short
In addition to these ratings, you have to know how their average combined estimates stack up for each stock, which can be found on the same link. Below is what we found for Intel. You simply need to substitute your stock to find the same analyst-related ratings and estimates.
Note: The above link provided does not provide these ratings, however, the image at right indicates where you can find this information, and you can see these ratings by clicking this image, or by using this link here >
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Analyst Ratings for Intel: Using the 2nd image link above, we find that Yahoo! Finance uses a 5-point scale - 1.0 (Strong Buy) to 5.0 (Sell) - to interpret analysts' ratings (so much easier - thank you, Yahoo)... Here's what we found:
General Average Ratings for Intel: 2.0 rating (that is a "buy" rating, on average)
Price target for INTC stock:
Mean Price Target (average): $27.64 per share.
High Price Target: $34.00
Low Price Target: $19.00
Number of brokers participating: 39
Note that you also can see how these recommendations have been trending over the last three months, where Intel added 3 "strong buy" recommendations since three months ago, and no other changes (probably indicating that it gained 3 new analysts to follow the stock, initiating their recommendations for Intel as a "strong buy."
What Intel's projections (earnings guidance) were for the next quarter: Going back to Step 250: Earnings Guidance Provided, we know the following guidance was provided by Intel:
Next Quarter's Earnings-Per-Share: This projected EPS is not provided by companies; it is a derived estimated value, based on the revenue estimate below and the projected gross margins provided by the company. This is a figure that the analysts who follow Intel closely will determine based on expected resulting profitability.
What the Analyst's Estimates are: From the link above, this page indicates that the current quarter (i.e., Q2) ends in June 2010. It also provides relative comparisons to estimates for the remaining quarters of the year, and for the year in total. Note that there are 42 analysts who follow INTC, for which they have officially recorded their guidance. This is an average of all 42 of those projections for Intel's stock.
Next Quarter's Earnings-Per-Share: $0.42 cents a share (with the low estimate at $0.37 cents a share, and the high estimate at $0.49 cents a share).
The next step, Major Holders, tells you who owns most of the stock, in addition to insiders, and how your stock may be much more vulnerable than you think to the whims of one or two large institutional holders.
More about this in Step 310...
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