I believe that the Zacks service has been referenced on this board a few times. I ran across the piece below this morning and decided to post here just because it struck me as “interesting” (as in totally clueless).
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/intermune-itmn-worth-watching-…
InterMune (ITMN) Worth Watching: Stock Rises 35.4%
By Zacks Equity Research
InterMune, Inc. (ITMN) was a big mover last session, as its shares rose over 35% on the day. The move came on solid volume too with far more shares changing hands than in a normal session. This continues the recent uptrend for the company, as the stock is now up above 60% in the past one-month timeframe.
In the last 30 days, the company witnessed nine negative estimate revisions and the Zacks Consensus Estimate also moved lower, signaling trouble down the road. So make sure to keep an eye on this stock going forward to see if yesterday’s move higher lasts.
ITMN was up 35.4% because Roche agreed to buy them for $74 a share. Not only is that little fact not mentioned, the move is just merged in with recent performance even though this is a binary event that stands alone. I have no idea how valuable Zacks research might be in general but this one seems to have been generated by an algorithm (and a pretty lame one at that) that just looks at a few numbers and spits out an article. I don’t see that there’s much “Worth Watching” here, the deal sounds like it’s pretty much done.
Like I said, I just found it interesting.
Steve
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Those algorithm-generated reports are annoyingly common, and frequently have obvious flaws. Sometimes the flaws are specific to a report on a particular stock, such as the ITMN one you noted. The defects that really get me, though, are the ones that show up in the boilerplate text. It hurts the credibility of the entire outfit issuing the report, in my view. I wonder “Why are you attaching your name to this crap? Is nobody there reading this?”
I’ve seen several Zacks reports that provide fill-in-the-blank financial data followed by a statement that these data indicate that the stock is a Buy (or whatever). The next sentence reads something to the effect that “This conclusion is reinforced by Zacks’ rating of Buy on this stock.” So, not only did you decide that it was a Buy based on some set of financials, but you feel even more strongly about this conviction because… you said you did? “Not only is it a Buy based on the data we looked at, but furthermore, we said it is a Buy. So it’s really, DEFINITELY a Buy.”
TheStreet dot com is even worse, with their Perilous Reversals and Dead Cat Bounces. They put out a bot-generated report on a stock, declaring it to be one or the other, based on a comparison of some intraday trading price with yesterday’s close. For this type of financial “journalism” they’re basing their content on a few hours’ difference in stock price. Totally and obviously useless, except for maybe making me think that I shouldn’t bother with TheStreet for any help with my investing decisions.
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" So, not only did you decide that it was a Buy based on some set of financials, but you feel even more strongly about this conviction because… you said you did? “Not only is it a Buy based on the data we looked at, but furthermore, we said it is a Buy. So it’s really, DEFINITELY a Buy.”
I actually lol’d 
‘Totally and obviously useless, except for maybe making me think that I shouldn’t bother with TheStreet for any help with my investing decisions.’
You look to them for help now?!
-srslydude
Yahoo finance (and other websites) should give you the option to filter articles from sources you don’t want to read. This would be a great tool to remove these useless links.
I do this all the time with my email. I have so many emails that get filtered straight to the trashcan so I don’t have to deal with them ever.