Housebuilders

[Gengulphus]

To give my take on the issue of brokers' opinions, I think they're near-worthless - and the very small amount of value they do have is only really in relation to what other investors are likely to do (i.e. basically short-term 'trading' value rather than long-term 'investing' value) or as an alert that I might be missing something (which is of course a possibility anyway, no matter how much research I do).

I have however sometimes found broker reports of value, not for their opinions, but for mentioning facts they based their opinions on that I'd missed in my own research. And it might be that after having such facts drawn to my attention, I'll change my opinion - or it might be that I decide that they make little difference to my opinion. (One thing to bear in mind about that is that both their opinion and mine may be based on the same facts about the company and both may be perfectly rational conclusions from those facts - yet they might differ markedly because we're looking for different things in our investments. In particular, what I as a HYPer am ideally looking for in a company for my HYP to invest in is something almost impossibly boring for any broker wanting their readers to be interested in following their tips!)

But as for their opinions, especially in stripped-of-all-facts-and-reasoning form such as consensus opinions on a Strong Sell / Sell / Reduce / Neutral / Add / Buy / Strong Buy scale or suchlike, at the very most they can alert me to a trading opportunity that I'm simply not interested in as a HYPer, or to the fact that I might have missed something important, with little or no hint as to where that something is or whether I will in fact consider it important.

Gengulphus

[DiamondEcho]

I have however sometimes found broker reports of value, not for their opinions, but for mentioning facts they based their opinions on that I'd missed in my own research. And it might be that after having such facts drawn to my attention, I'll change my opinion - or it might be that I decide that they make little difference to my opinion.

Quite. I put less value in a net rating at a single point-in-time, because in the mythical 'perfect market' it'll be reflected in the price anyway. But I do find value in noting how an aggregate rating ebbs and flows over time. Ie. if you start to see the tide turning from +ve to -ve or vice versa, I find it's worthwhile doing some further research.