Stock Analysts

Here is a chronology of events in the government probes into tainted Wall Street stock research: 2001 * June 14: Congress holds its first hearing on analyst conflicts of interest. * July 31: A Securities and Exchange Commission survey shows that more than one-quarter of analysts had purchased stocks before recommending them to investors. 2002 * April 8: New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer says his investigation of Merrill Lynch & Co.

Facebook Inc. analysts including those at lead underwriter Morgan Stanley say the social-network operator is worth no more than its debut price of $38. At least 17 securities firms began coverage of the company Wednesday, bringing the average analyst share-price estimate to $37.95, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Morgan Stanley gave Facebook the equivalent of a buy rating, as did JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and five other firms. There were eight holds and one sell, the data show.

Name: Mark Matheson Company: Cruttenden & Co. Thumbs up: "I have the best job in the world. I'm at the forefront of every hot new technology. I get right in to see the CEOs. I also like the daily variety. The market is different every day. I always wanted to be a detective when I was growing up. Now I am a stock market detective, which is a lot better paying than a police detective and a lot less hazardous--except to my blood pressure." Thumbs down: "The stress.

Stock analysts are not known for being a rebellious sort. Their jobs generally involve writing up dry technical reports on public companies. But Mike Mayo is not your typical stock analyst. Since joining the industry nearly 25 years ago, Mayo has shaken up the financial world with his bold and forthright analysis of the banks he researches. In 1999, he told investors to sell all bank stocks. In 2007, he was ahead of the pack in downgrading Bear Stearns Cos. and Citigroup Inc. Perhaps predictably, this hasn't earned him a lot of love, given that he has worked at banks himself and that his employers wanted to do business with many of the banks he was analyzing.

After Irvine-based ABI American Businessphones announced plans in December to be acquired by another company, Wall Street stopped paying attention. Although ABI shares were among the top 10 price gainers on the American Stock Exchange last year, the acquisition agreement effectively fixed the price of the stock and eliminated any incentive for analysts to predict the firm's profits or future potential.

A stock analyst admitted in federal court in St. Louis on Thursday that he threatened to damage the reputation and stock of CKE Restaurants Inc. if the Carpinteria, Calif., company didn't hire him as a consultant for $300,000. C. Clive Munro, 54, pleaded guilty to committing interstate threats. As part of a plea deal, prosecutors agreed to drop felony charges of extortion, wire fraud and securities fraud. Munro, arrested in October at his Cheyenne, Wyo.

Jack Grubman, once the most powerful telecommunications analyst on Wall Street, resigned from Salomon Smith Barney late Thursday amid a litany of government probes into whether financial conflicts tainted his stock recommendations. In what the brokerage called a "mutual agreement," Grubman resigned after accepting a severance package totaling $13.2 mil- lion.

Is that a cup and handle? Do I see a "W" pattern on the chart in front of me? I am sitting in my den in Venice, staring at a computer screen, trying to discern these things. The charts I am scrutinizing are of stock prices, and I am trying to find the right one, the one that's behaving like a stock whose price is about to soar. Finally, I think I've found it, a ladle-looking image that marks the rise, fall and rise again of a company's worth in the market. This particular company, EZCorp Inc.

A newspaper gave five stock analysts and a chimpanzee the equivalent of $1,250 each to make as much money as they could on the stock market. The chimp won. After one month, the chimpanzee, Ola, saw the value of his stocks rise $190, the newspaper Expressen reported this week. Runner-up was Mats Jonnerhag, publisher of the newsletter Bourse Insight. His stocks rose $130 from Aug. 3 to Sept. 3.

NEW YORK -- West Virginia has sued 10 investment banks over alleged conflicts of interest among stock analysts, saying a proposed settlement between the firms and state and federal securities regulators doesn't go far enough to punish wrongdoing on Wall Street. The lawsuit, filed Monday in West Virginia state court, could seek as much as $1.9 billion from 10 major firms, said Fran Hughes, the state's chief deputy attorney general.

Behind frosted glass in rooms off-limits to anyone not cleared for access, analysts at research firm Copal Partners calculate company valuations, compile industry data and write case studies of past mergers. Their specialty is pitch books, the reports that investment banks use to win M&A deals. The Copal team is working in an office building in the New Delhi suburb of Gurgaon; its clients are Wall Street banks halfway across the globe.

The world's largest producer of iron ore could trump two other players in the race for Canadian nickel giant Inco Ltd. with an all-cash offer worth C$19.9 billion ($17.6 billion), analysts said Friday. Companhia Vale do Rio Doce of Brazil launched its unsolicited bid of C$86 a share Friday. That's more than double the cash that Canadian zinc miner Teck Cominco Ltd. has offered in its cash-and-stock bid and more than four times the cash portion of a competing offer from U.S.

Sell Dell? That was the opinion Friday of Citigroup's Richard Gardner, who slapped what may be the first "sell" recommendation by a U.S. analyst on the world's largest computer maker. The move sent Dell Inc.'s shares sliding $1.23 to a three-year low of $27.01. Lower-cost rivals "have significantly closed the gap between themselves and Dell," said Gardner, who previously had rated the stock a "buy."

Is that a cup and handle? Do I see a "W" pattern on the chart in front of me? I am sitting in my den in Venice, staring at a computer screen, trying to discern these things. The charts I am scrutinizing are of stock prices, and I am trying to find the right one, the one that's behaving like a stock whose price is about to soar. Finally, I think I've found it, a ladle-looking image that marks the rise, fall and rise again of a company's worth in the market. This particular company, EZCorp Inc.

A judge on Wednesday refused to throw out Overstock.com Inc.'s lawsuit against Gradient Analytics Inc., rejecting an argument that the research company's reports criticizing Overstock were protected free speech. Superior Court Judge Vernon Smith in San Rafael, Calif., tentatively denied Gradient's request for dismissal under a California statute that shields companies from suits aimed at stifling free speech. Overstock.com claims Gradient issued false reports about the company.

Scott Cleland's timing appeared to be perfect when he launched an independent stock-research firm five years ago. The 1990s bull market had ended, the government was preparing to crack down on tainted analysts and Cleland thought investors would clamor for conflict-free research. He was wrong. Although his firm was profitable, Cleland quietly fled the research business last month after concluding that it didn't have much of a future.

Stock analysts and portfolio managers feel more cut off from the corporations they follow months after a rule took effect forcing companies to disclose market-moving information on a wider scale, according to a survey released Monday. Fifty-seven percent of analysts and portfolio managers said the "volume of substantive information" put out by companies has fallen since the new rule took effect, according to a survey by the Assn. for Investment Management and Research.

In the latest blow to the image of Wall Street stock analysts, federal regulators said Tuesday that more than one-quarter of analysts they surveyed had purchased shares of companies at low prices before recommending the stocks to investors. Of 57 analysts surveyed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, 16 acquired shares in so-called private placements at attractive prices that were unavailable to the general public.

Baidu.com lost nearly a third of its market value Wednesday after two of the investment banks that managed the Chinese Internet search firm's meteoric initial public offering said the stock price was overblown. The shares plunged $32.27, or 28%, to $81.32. U.S. Internet search leader Google Inc. also slumped Wednesday, before its secondary stock sale. The deal was priced after the close of regular trading. For Baidu.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday approved a blanket ban prohibiting brokerage analysts from taking part in "road shows" that pitch securities offerings to investors. Wall Street's 10 largest investment banks have been subject to such a ban since 2003, when the firms settled regulators' allegations that some of their analysts publicly praised stocks of investment banking clients while privately panning the companies.