Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Rich Smith :: Townhall.com Columnist
This Just In: Upgrades and Downgrades
by Rich Smith
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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 track the long-term performance of Wall Street's best and brightest -- and its worst and sorriest, too.

And speaking of the best ...
Shareholders of Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) have seen their stock trounce the S&P's gains over the past year -- and to hear FBR Capitaltell it, the good news isn't over yet. While other investors may shudder at TI's seemingly high 33 P/E, this analyst looks at this stock and spies ... a screaming bargain.

What is it, exactly, that FBR sees that others do not?

All of which has FBR thinking TI is "extremely inexpensive" today -- enough so that it's likely to keep on "outperforming" the market just as it's done all year long. But is the logic AOK at FBR?

Let's go to the tape
At first glance, you might not think so. Fact is, while FBR enjoys a strong reputation on the Street, its numbers don't always back that up. Over the past three years that we've tracked this analyst, only about 47% of FBR's stock picks have managed to beat the market -- and in the semiconductor sectorin particular, FBR's batting only about .400 (great stats in baseball; not so hot in stock-picking), hurt by recommendations such as:

Stock

FBR Says:

CAPS says:

FBR's Picks Lagging S&P By:

MEMC Electronic Materials (NYSE: WFR)

Outperform

*****

55 points (four picks)

NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA)

Outperform

****

12 points

Applied Materials (Nasdaq: AMAT)

Outperform

****

3 points

On the other hand, though, FBR haspicked some outstanding winners as well:

Stock

FBR Says:

CAPS says:

FBR's Picks Beating (Lagging) S&P By:

AMD (NYSE: AMD)

Outperform

** Continued...

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About The Author

Rich Smith is a business writer with the Motley Fool.

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