Stock recommendations and investment portfolio formation: A study in the Brazilian market

Resumen

The stock analysts have a relevant role in the capital market, since, directly or indirectly, they contribute to the paper pricing and to the composition of the investment portfolio. The purpose of this study is to verify if it is possible to obtain extraordinary returns, above those offered by a market portfolio, with the monitoring of the stock recommendations issued by Brazilian capital market analysts, one of the most important in Latin America. Based on a wide range of consensual recommendations concerning the period from 2000 to 2010, and with the monitoring of the historical series of paper returns covered by the analyses, the performance of two portfolios were compared, one formed by stocks that received favorable and the other one formed by stocks that received unfavorable analyst recommendations. The results showed bias in recommendations, since there is, systematically, a greater number of favorable against unfavorable recommendations. The results mainly showed that the analysts were unable to identify the stocks that actually offered greater returns within the period considered.