Sector and Stock Buy Ratings

Below we highlight the average percentage of buy ratings for stocks in each of the ten S&P 500 sectors. As shown, Financial stocks have the lowest percentage of buy ratings of any sector at 35%, while Energy has the highest at 63%. Consumer Discretionary, Materials, and Consumer Staples are the three other sectors (along with Financials) that have below average buy ratings compared to all stocks in the S&P 500.

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Bloomberg has an analyst recommendation scoring system (1=worst, 5=best) based on the number of buy and sell ratings for each stock. Below we highlight the 3-month change in the average score for stocks in each sector. This number highlights which sectors analysts have gotten more bullish or bearish on in recent months.

All stocks in the index have seen their average 1 to 5 rating fall 0.03 points. Interestingly, as oil and other commodity prices have fallen off a cliff, analysts have increased ratings on the Energy sector the most, while they've decreased ratings the most on Materials. Technology has seen its ratings fall the second most, while Consumer Discretionary and Industrials have also fallen more than the overall average.

For those interested, below we highlight stocks in the S&P 500 with the highest percentage of analyst buy ratings. Just four stocks in the index have 100% buy ratings - LO, PM, TMO and AYE. Other notables on the list include Google (GOOG) (92% buy ratings), Halliburton (HAL) (88%), and QUALCOMM (QCOM) (86%).

Comments

[Anthony Alfidi:]

Nice charts guys! Some hedge fund is probably designing an algorithim to trade on your data.

2008 Dec 08 06:37 PM

[GWTW:]

HOW DOES BLL MANAGE TO SQUEEZE INTO THE TOP OF THIS LIST? NONE OF THE OFFICERS OR DIRECTORS ARE BUYING THE STOCK, BUT SEVERAL ARE SELLING!!

2008 Dec 14 12:42 AM