Justin Time

Institutional Analysts Are Practically Worthless: The Case of Maxim

Nice trade on Maxim - did your entire portfolio outperform the market or are you selectively talking up only your winner(s)? I don't disagree with the supposition that many Institutional Analysts are useless, but I think a blanket condemnation only shows your lack of understanding of the brokerage business. Published buy/hold/sell calls are a very small part of the value that analysts provide to institutional investors - they are not publishing for the individual investor or short term trader. Buy/hold/sell changes are often late and after the stock has moved significantly, but the good analysts have been communicating the changes in business fundamentals they are seeing to their institutional clients long before the rating change is officially made. Many large institutional investors have said that they don't even look at the buy/hold/sell call - they consider the decision on when to buy or sell a stock their value add - they look to analysts for information to help them reach their own buy/sell decision. That information is communicated every day, while ratings changes may occur 2 or 3 times a year. One final point and I will get off my soap box - if you are an institutional analyst and you change your ratings as frequently as you buy and sell a stock - holding your Maxim for a couple of months for a 14% gain - you will piss off your sales force and your clients, and will eventually get fired. Large institutions can't trade in and out of stocks like a day trader. Just be aware of the difference in audience between an individual short term trader and the base of constituents a large brokerage firm does business with.

Trident Micro's Likely to Be Snapped Up by a Larger Competitor

How in the world do you arrive at the conclusion that TRID is trading at a significant discount to its peers? GNSS is trading approximately at cash value, with enterprise value of approximately zero. Pixelworks is trading at a discount to cash value. NVDA and IDTI are not peers - neither company is involved in the flat panel TV market. Do your homework and quit using this site as a means to pump your position, which I would guess approximates the Titanic in terms of how far underwater it is.