S&P 500 Buy and Sell Ratings

For those interested, below we highlight every stock in the S&P 500 Financial sector along with their percentage of analyst buy and sell ratings. The list is broken out by industry group (banks, diversified financials, insurance, and real estate) and then sorted by buy ratings from most to least. As shown, People's United Financial (formerly People's Bank of Connecticut) has the highest percentage of buy ratings in the bank group at 50%. M&T Bank (MTB), Regions Financial (RF), and Huntington Bancshares (HBAN) all have less than 10% buy ratings in the bank group.

In the diversified financials group, CIT Group has the most buy ratings at 75%, followed by AMP, MCO, SLM (oops), and JPM. American Capital (ACAS), E*Trade (ETFC), and Janus Capital (JNS) have zero buy ratings.

Of the REITS, Simon Property (SPG) is the only company that is really liked by analysts, with 88% buy ratings. AIV, on the other hand, is the only REIT with no buy ratings.

And finally, MetLife (MET), Assurant (AIZ), Chubb (CB), Travelers (TRV), and Prudential (PRU) are the most loved stocks in the insurance group. CINF, L, and MBI are the three insurers with no buy ratings, but they don't have any sell ratings either. Progressive (PGR) and Principal Financial (PFG) have the highest percentage of sell ratings at 27%.

Comments

[Augustus:]

Regions Financial is the Bank that Michael Shedlock recommended. It is the only buy recommendation that I know he has made since becomming a registered advisor. So much for that operation. It must be about as great as his economic nonsense.

Feb 28 04:44 PM

[Mad Hedge F...:]

Er &g There is some fascinating action going on the options market right now. There is some massive buying of short dated puts in Wells Fargo (WFC) and JP Morgan (JPM), while buying of longer dated puts has weirdly almost vaporized. These are the only two high priced big bank stocks left. It is not happening in Citibank (C) or Bank of America (BAC) where there is so little meat left on the bone that buyers don’t want to feel like they are the last man at an all you can eat buffet. Brace yourself. This is good news. It means that traders expect to see some short term volatility in these names. After that Obama’s bank bailout, stimulus program, and new budget will start to kick in and come to the rescue of the sector. Call me the “options whisperer.” I stroke these things, and they speak to me.

Feb 28 10:11 PM

[SteveTheHawk:]

Analyst - Schmanalyst. Too many buy/hold ratings and never enough sell ratings.

Mar 01 08:32 AM

[2houndz:]

I once worked for a guy who had been a REIT analyst. He seldom had a bad word to say about the REIT's and later became a President at one of the companies listed above. He knew next-to-nothing about the shopping center business, but made a fortune as an executive at a major REIT. He moved on from there when another big REIT gave him more money and authority.

I'm a daytrader and I don't pay much attention to fundamentals, but for a long term investment, analyst opinions are vitually worthless IMO. They usually know little about the business and avoid saying anything negative for political reasons.

Mar 01 09:18 AM

[sligoo:]

For the now and then: BBT and JPM !!!

Mar 01 03:11 PM