Analyst Ratings: What To Know And How To Leverage Using Benzinga Pro

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What Are Analyst Ratings? Analysts are specialists within the banking and financial systems that typically report for specific stocks or within defined sectors. They research company financial statements, sit in conference calls and meetings, and speak with relevant insiders to determine what are known as analyst ratings for stocks. Typically, analysts will rate each stock once a quarter.

Analysts also give out recommendations like “buy”, “sell”, and “hold” or similar verbiage for each stock based on their overall evaluations of the corresponding company. A “buy” indicates that an analyst is optimistic about a stock’s short-term or mid-term growth, recommending traders to purchase the stock. Contrastingly, a “sell” means that an analyst believes the stock will trend downwards in that same time frame. A “hold” suggests that investors should not buy more of or sell any of the specified stock due to that analyst’s prediction of stagnation.

Some analysts also offer predictions for helpful metrics such as earnings, revenue, and growth estimates to provide further guidance as to what to do with certain tickers. It is important to keep in mind that while stock and sector analysts are specialists, they are also human and can only forecast their beliefs to traders.

Utilizing Analyst Ratings with Benzinga Pro: Benzinga Pro offers traders all kinds of analyst rating data within the tool. Users can filter their newsfeeds for analyst ratings to stay up-to-date on the newest activity from stock and sector analysts. Furthermore, every ticker comes with a complete history of past analyst ratings as well as previous and forecasted metric predictions. Traders can leverage this input to make informed decisions on what to do about stocks they are eyeing.