That is probably the best post i have ever read on HC...

That is probably the best post i have ever read on HC @AimForSimon

Analysts are seriously a total waste of time. Not a single great investor uses them. Fund managers do not make decisions based on Analysts. Below are some quotes by Investment Masters on how useless Analysts are - it will make you smile 

“I have repeatedly found that analysts tend to peg their target prices in the vicinity of the current stock price” Mohnish Pabrai

“As for the equity research published by brokerage firms, I read little of it, and never rely on it” Guy Spier

“When an analyst first makes a forecast for a company’s earnings two years prior to the actual event, they are on average wrong by a staggering 94%.  Even at a 12 month time horizon, they are wrong by around 45%!.  To put it mildly, analysts don’t have a clue about future earnings.” James Montier

"You can’t read Wall Street reports and get anything out of them. You have to do it yourself and get your arms around it. I don’t think we’ve ever gotten an idea, you know, in 40 years from a Wall Street report. But we’ve gotten a lot of ideas from annual reports." Warren Buffett

"I focussed my analysis on seeking to identify the factors that were strongly correlated to a stock's price movement as opposed to looking at all the fundamentals.  Frankly, even today, many analysts still don't know what makes their particular stocks go up and down"  Stanley Druckenmiller

“Your investor’s edge is not something you get from Wall Street experts.  It’s something you already have.  You can outperform the experts if you use your edge by investing in companies or industries you already understand”  Peter Lynch

“For the most part, I don’t think they’re [analysts] independent thinkers. Their stocks at $15, they put a target of $17 or $13 - that sort of thing. They aren’t looking at it the way an owner would and/or someone who would want to be a long term investor in the business. So the analysts are disappointing from that point of view.” Mohnish Pabrai

“Bloomberg lists on a monthly basis the highest-ranked and lowest-ranked stocks by sell-side analysts. I look at the lowest ranked for buying opportunities and the highest-ranked for selling opportunities. “ Jon Jacobson

“My experience is that the recommendations of Wall Street analysts are wrong more often than they are correct.    Why do analysts tend to be substandard stock pickers? Most analysts follow only one or a few industries and tend to have deep knowledge about the companies they follow.  However, there is a large difference between knowledge and judgment. It is said that knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, but judgment is not putting it in your fruit salad. To have good judgment, you need to have the knowledge, but, in my opinion, you also need many other qualities, including common sense, stable emotions, confidence, and, quite possibly, an indefinable sixth sense.Furthermore, in my opinion, most individuals, including securities analysts, feel more comfortable projecting current fundamentals into the future than projecting changes what will occur in the future.  Current fundamentals are based on known information. Future fundamentals are based on unknowns. Predicting the future from unknowns requires the efforts of thinking, assigning probabilities, and sticking one neck out - all efforts that human beings too often prefer to avoid. Also, I believe it is difficult for securities analysts to embrace companies and industries that currently are suffering from poor results and impaired reputations. Often, securities analysts want to see tangible proof of better results before recommending a stock.  My philosophy is that life is not about waiting for a storm to pass. It is about dancing in the rain. One usually can read a weather map and reasonably project when a storm will pass. If one waits for the moment when the sun breaks out, there is a high probability others already will have reacted to the improved prospects and already will have driven up the price of the stock - and thus the opportunity to earn large profits will have been missed.”  Ed Wachenheim 

“You find that analysts and economists have big egos, which just gets in the way of making money because they can never admit that they are wrong”  Michael Platt 

“We do not rely on Wall Street-generated research. We do our own research.” Lou Simpson

“The trouble with analysts reports is that their time frame is usually six to twelve months, but ours is five years.  So it’s fine to read what they say about businesses, but not their price targets”  Jean Marie Eviellard

“As for the equity research published by brokerage firms, I read little of it, and never rely on it” Guy Spier

"my experience, you know, in talking to hundreds of them [analysts] , is that there are relatively few that are actually thinking about, “What do we buy and put away forever?” Like, we’d buy a farm or an apartment house or something." Warren Buffett