Wednesday, November 04, 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 worst ...
Are you scared yet, SanDisk (Nasdaq: SNDK) shareholders? Yesterday, Wedbush Morgandowngraded your stock to the equivalent of a sell rating, sending the stock into a 3% tailspin. And why did it do that? You tell me:

Q1 NAND supply will likely exceed demand due to NAND process technology die shrinks increasing NAND output coupled with typical weak seasonal Q1 end market demand. We expect the imbalance in the NAND supply environment to pressure Q1 bit growth, ASPs, gross margin and revenue below our prior expectations.

"Technology die shrinks?"

"NAND output coupled?"

"Q1 bit growth?"

Who talkslike that? It's like the analysts at Wedbush are the same folks who write the instruction manuals that "help" us set up our plasma TVs, and assemble the kids' bicycles late at night on Christmas Eve.

Clear writing equals clear thinking ...
... and judging from Wedbush's record in the semi-space, the converse is also true. For while it's true that Wedbush has picked the odd winner in this industry from time to time ...

Stock

Wedbush Says:

CAPS says:

Wedbush's Picks Leading S&P By:

Intel (Nasdaq: INTC)

Outperform

****

12 points

Broadcom (Nasdaq: BRCM)

Outperform

***

2 points

... it's more often the case that when Wedbush says a semiconductor stock is going up, it proceeds to drop instead:

Stock

Wedbush Says:

CAPS says:

Wedbush's Picks Lagging S&P By:

NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA)

Outperform

****

12 points

Micron Technology (NYSE: MU) Continued...

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About The Author

Rich Smith is a business writer with the Motley Fool.

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