At The Motley Fool, we poke plenty of fun at Wall Street analysts and their endless cycle of upgrades, downgrades, and "initiating coverage at neutral." So you might think we'd be the last people to give virtual ink to such "news." And we would be -- if that were all we were doing.

But in "This Just In," we don't simply tell you what the analysts said. We'll also show you whether they know what they're talking about. To help, we've enlisted Motley Fool CAPS, our tool for rating stocks and analysts alike. With CAPS, we'll be tracking the long-term performance of Wall Street's best and brightest -- and its worst and sorriest, too.

And speaking of the best...
Bang! Whiff! Two of the best known names in stockpicking marked off their paces, turned, and fought a duel yesterday over for-profit education companies such as Apollo Group (Nasdaq: APOL), ITT Educational (NYSE: ESI), Lincoln Educational Services , and DeVry (NYSE: DV).

Swiss banker Credit Suisse fired the first shot, downgrading a handful of stocks across the sector to neutral, and warning that it sees "very little room for upside" in the prices of the first three stocks named above. No sooner did Credit Suisse issued its downgrades, though, than Euro-neighbor Deutsche Bank averred that investors should be safe buying Apollo and ITT, while DeVry was labeled a "hold."

Question 1: Compare and contrast Credit Suisse...
Of course, it's not so much the companies themselves that Credit Suisse doesn't like. Rather, the banker worries that the U.S. Department of Education may soon impose a raft of new regulations on for-profit educators, hurting sales growth. Among other things, Credit Suisse fears that the DoE will:

... with Deutsche Bank
In response to Credit Suisse's dread of the unknown, Deutsche tells us what it knows -- and likes -- about the companies. Namely, "attractive relative valuation" at Apollo Group and "industry-leading margins" at ITT.. Deutsche thinks Apollo will continue to achieve high growth "longer-than-expected" and notes that ITT "has grown enrollment above the industry average since '05."

As for Deutsche's muted enthusiasm for DeVry, the analyst points out that Apollo's University of Phoenix "brand is searched in Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) 4.4x more than the next-highest for-profit university (DeVry)." Credit Suisse also sees DeVry's stock as more fully valued than some of its peers, offering less upside potential.

Scoring the graders
Education stocks were mixed on the news yesterday, with Apollo off 7%, and DeVry falling nearly 8% but ITT up an unremarkable 1.2% -- which suggests that investors are taking Credit Suisse's worries to heart, rather than embracing Deutsche's optimism. But is that the right reaction? Continued...