Let's take a look at what these Wall Street heavyweights have to say about Coca-Cola (KO) before we discuss the reliability of brokerage recommendations and how to use them to your advantage. Coke currently has an average brokerage recommendation (ABR) of 1.50, on a scale of 1 to 5 (Strong Buy to Strong Sell), calculated based on the actual recommendations (Buy, Hold, Sell, etc.) An ABR of 1.50 approximates between Strong Buy and Buy. According to our research, brokerage firms assign five "Strong Buy" recommendations for every "Strong Sell" recommendation. The ABR is calculated solely based on brokerage recommendations and is typically displayed with decimals (example: 1.28).
