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 ...
Is it time to buy Yingli Green Energy (NYSE: YGE)? Depends on whom you ask. According to the solar specialists at Janney Montgomery Scott, there's no better play on the coming Solar Revolution than Yingli, which Janney calls "a major price setter" in the photovoltaic market.

Janney observes that Yingli is "currently shippingmore than its current nameplate capacity." In conjunction with "other evidence that prices are beginning to stabilize," Janney predicts that "[a] combination of strong demand, better credit, and stable supply" will yield robust sales for Yingli, improved margins, and ... an upgrade from neutral to "buy."

Not so fast
HSBC, however, begs to differ. In a series of solar ratings issued this morning, HSBC places Yingli at the bottomof the solar stack. Rather, HSBC thinks Trina Solar (NYSE: TSL) you're your best play in the solar space. Suntech Power (NYSE: STP) got an upgrade to "neutral" on the back of last week's announcement of a major Chinese push into rooftop solar panels. But Yingli? Not only did HSBC downgrade the stock; it dropped it two full slots -- all the way from "overweight" (buy) to "underweight" (sell).

Buoyed by news of the positive Trina initiation and Suntech upgrade, investors have bid both stocks up strongly. But here's the really interesting bit: Investors are also buying Yingli, disregarding HSBC's bearish rumblings, and latching onto Janney's happy-talk instead. Is that the right call?

Let's go to the tape
To get a few clues to the analysts' relative skill in picking solar stocks, we turn to Motley Fool CAPS, where we're been tracking each stock shop's performance for more than three years now. What we find in the public record, however, is far from encouraging:

Stock

Janney Says:

CAPS says:

Janney's Picks Lagging S&P By:

SunPower Corp (Nasdaq: SPWRA)

Outperform

***

15 points

First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR)

Outperform

**

27 points

FuelCell Energy (Nasdaq: FCEL)

Outperform

**

41 points

Investors seem very optimistic now that Janney's turned positive on Yingli Green Energy. Yet, literally every timeJanney has picked a solar stockto outperform in the past, the stock has done the opposite. Now for HSBC's record:

Stock

HSBC Says:

CAPS says:

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

Yingli Continued...