It's also been awhile since we provided a list of the S&P 500 stocks with the highest percentage of buy and sell ratings. Stocks with a high number of buy ratings are obviously loved by analysts, but contrarians will argue that too much bullishness on a stock is a bad thing. Upgrades do typically move stocks higher at least in the short term, and when a stock already has pretty much all buy ratings, there isn't much upside left. On the flip side, stocks with a high number of sell ratings are hated by analysts, but they also have a lot of upside potential for upgrades down the road.
As shown below, three stocks in the S&P 500 currently have 90% buy ratings or more -- CTSH, CMS, and FLS. None of these stocks have sell ratings. Apple (AAPL) and Mastercard (MA) are tied for fourth at 89%. Overall, there are way more buy ratings than sell ratings. In the S&P 500, 245 stocks have 50% or more buy ratings, while just 5 stocks have 50% or more sell ratings (2 of these 5 only have 1 analyst rating as well). Eastman Kodak (EK), Sears Holdings (SHLD), and AIG are the only stocks in the index with more than one rating that have 50% sell ratings.
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