How we score analysts
Every success rate, average return and star rank on this site is computed by us from the analyst’s own published rating dates and the stock’s adjusted closing prices. None of it is supplied by a vendor as a finished score, which means you can reproduce any figure here from the rating history on the analyst’s page.
Rating outcome
For each Buy or Sell rating we measure the stock’s return from the rating date to the end of the holding period — 1 month, 3 months, 1 year or 2 years, with 1 year as the default. Sell returns are inverted, so a Sell on a stock that fell 20% scores +20%, exactly as a Buy on a stock that rose 20% does.
The outcome is taken at the end of the holding period, not today. A rating whose period has not finished is not scored at all rather than being graded on a partial window — otherwise one average would quietly mix a finished two-year call with an eight-month-old one.
What is excluded
- Hold ratings. A Hold is not a directional call, so it has no outcome to be right or wrong about. It counts toward the consensus and toward an analyst’s rating count, and never toward a success rate.
- Ratings less than 30 days old. A call needs time to season before its outcome means anything.
- Issuer-paid research. Research a company paid to have published about itself is labelled Paid research (issuer-sponsored) and is kept out of the consensus, the price target, the rankings and the Best analysts block entirely. It is shown on the page, under its own heading, so you can see it exists.
Success rate and average return
Success rate is the share of an analyst’s scored outcomes that are positive. A flat outcome is not a success. Average return is the mean of those same outcomes — not a portfolio return, and not compounded: it is the average result of following one call for one holding period.
Both are measured against zero, not against the market. An analyst with a +9% average in a year the index rose 12% scores +9% here. A benchmark-relative version is a planned second phase, and until it ships these numbers should be read as absolute.
Star rank
A percentile score combining success rate, average return, how many ratings an analyst has and how recent they are, weighted toward statistical significance so a perfect record over a handful of calls cannot top the board.
An analyst needs at least 10 scored ratings before they get stars. Under that the card says “not enough ratings to rank yet” rather than printing 100% over three calls.
Prices
Outcomes use closing prices adjusted for splits, consolidations and dividends. This matters more than it sounds for the smaller listings we cover, where a consolidation can otherwise make a flat stock look like a collapse.
What this data cannot tell you
Two honest limits, both from the feed rather than the method:
- Not every rating names an analyst. The rating and the action (initiated, reiterated, upgraded, downgraded) reach us attributed to the firm; the analyst’s name arrives on a separate price-target feed and is present for roughly 44% of notes, more on large caps and less on small ones. Where we have no name, the row shows the firm and the record is the firm’s record. We never attach a person’s name to a note that did not carry one.
- Many listings have no analyst coverage at all. Most TSXV and CSE names — and some larger Canadian issuers — have no independent sell-side analyst in our data. Those pages say so and point to insider activity and disclosed promotion instead of showing a consensus built from one or two notes.
Corrections
If a figure here looks wrong, it may well be. Tell us which analyst and which rating at george@insiderbuying.com and we will check it against the source note.