Analyst Rating

An analyst rating is a sell-side research firm's summary opinion on a stock, usually on a buy/hold/sell scale or a house variant like overweight/equal-weight/underweight or outperform/neutral/underperform. Each rating ships with a price target and an estimate model behind it.

The distribution is famously skewed: sell ratings typically make up well under 10% of all ratings on large caps, because analysts need management access and their firms court banking business. So the scale grades on a curve. A downgrade from buy to hold often functions as a polite sell, and a rare outright sell rating from a major firm can hit a stock harder than an earnings miss.