This is the problem for long long time but no body bother to look into this problem as we are RETAIL INVESTORS. To give insight, institutional investors are given the report few days before the actual release. Hence they have already exited the market if that report is a SELL, or loaded up if the report is BUY. THere is just no fairness and who access to the report have ample time to react.

For retail investor, those reports are way too late. RETAIL INVESTORS are at disadvantage. Unless there are regulation to enforce for these cold blooded firm to release the reports to all institutional and retailors at the same time, failing which they would be suspended from operation. With whistle blower together they would be scare of getting caught with the pants down.

This sort of things are based on a case by case basis.  I don't know if we have any lawyer here, but I believe if any of the following conditions are present, you can sue the analyst who make a recommendation for you to lose money.

1.  You are a paid subscriber to his service and he provides you the information based on his expertise for a fee.

2.  You or other subscribers also lost money based on the untruthfulness of his report.

3. You can prove he makes money while you lost.

IMO

ekekeg      ( Date: 17-Oct-2008 11:31) Posted: Legally despite their disclaimer, if alot of people lost money out of their recommendations, they can come together and sue these analysts and ask them to pay something.  But you need a good lawyer to do so. rabbitfoot      ( Date: 17-Oct-2008 11:28) Posted: Looking at current share price, I cannot help but question the quality and integrity of  analysts here. Just look at China stocks listed here which were so highly recommended and now they are left in jitters. Can they please come out and explain why they had such strong buy calls previously and suddenly now issue sell call even though the price now is so dirt cheap.