Here is an e-mail exchange between an institutional inverstoer and a Lehman brother analyst. Hope this will answer your question...
Institutional Investor: I understand - business is business. But I feel bad for those naïve investors who assume that sell-side analysts are objective! I wish some buy-side institutions would get together to establish an independent equity research consortium with analysts paid for on a subscription basis or something ...
Analyst: well, ratings and price targets are fairly meaningless anyway, buy-side generally ignores, commentary is what matters and I'll be a 3-Neutral in my comments . . . but, yes, the "little guy" who isn't smart about the nuances may get misled, such is the nature of my business.
