I am looking for a site where I can search based on a stock name (or
ticker), a brokerage firm and a date range and get a list of their
recommendations during this period.  The time period may go back up to
5 years and some of the tickers may no longer be in existance because
the companies were acquired or went out of business.
Finally, dont want to spend more then $50 (if a service fee is
required) and will need to get this information for some 50-70
securities.
(And... I'll pay you an extra $10 if you find a free service which
will meet my needs)

Thanks for your help!

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Request for Question Clarification by sldreamer-ga on 25 Apr 2003 21:23 PDT

There is a free web site that lets you search for analyst
recommendations for a particular stock (even if it no longer exists). 
You just enter the ticker, and it returns all of the analyst
recommendations (initiations, upgrades, and downgrades) for that stock
going back to early 1998.  The results can be sorted by brokerage
firm, so you can easily see all of the recommendations made by a
particular firm.  If this satisfies your needs, then I can provide
more details about the web site.

---

Request for Question Clarification by sldreamer-ga on 25 Apr 2003 21:57 PDT

If you could post a few of the securities, then I could post the
analyst recommendations returned by the free web site.  This will give
you an idea of what the results will be like.

---

Clarification of Question by johnbacktrack-ga on 26 Apr 2003 16:49 PDT

Here are 3 examples;

Xpedior | Jan 1999 - Jan 2000 | CSFB
Exodus Communications | Jan 1999 - Jan 2000 |Goldman Sachs and CSFB
SDL Inc Com | Jan 1999 - Jan 2000 | Merrill Lynch and CSFB 
Asat Holdings Ltd ADR | Jan 1999 - Jan 2000 | CSFB

As you can see most of these have either been acquired or are
bankrupt.  One is an ADR (foreign stock traded on a US exchange).

I look forward to seeing what you can deliver.

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Request for Question Clarification by sldreamer-ga on 26 Apr 2003 19:11 PDT

Here are the results returned by the free web site:

Xpedior | Jan 1999 - Jan 2000 | CSFB

No analyst recommendations were returned for that time period and
brokerage firm.


Exodus Communications | Jan 1999 - Jan 2000 | Goldman Sachs and CSFB

20-Apr-99  Goldman Sachs   upgrade:   from Mkt Outperform
                                      to Recomm. List 


SDL Inc Com | Jan 1999 - Jan 2000 | Merrill Lynch and CSFB

24-Nov-99  CSFB            initiated: at Buy 


Asat Holdings Ltd ADR | Jan 1999 - Jan 2000 | CSFB

No analyst recommendations were returned for that time period and
brokerage firm.


As you can see, not many results were returned.  Either the free web
site has incomplete data, or the four companies just did not receive
many analyst recommendations from the specified brokerage firms during
the specified time periods.  If you are not satisfied with these
results, then we can search for other web sites that may provide
better data.

---

Clarification of Question by johnbacktrack-ga on 27 Apr 2003 04:50 PDT

It is a very tricky situation bacause during these dates DLJ
(Donaldson Luftkin and Jenrette (Spelling??)) was being acquired by
CSFB (Credit Suisse First Boston).

So not only were the companies being bought and sold but the
brokerage/research firms were too.

Was there any results when you look under DLJ instead of CSFB?

---

Request for Question Clarification by sldreamer-ga on 27 Apr 2003 13:30 PDT

Exodus was the only company that received any analyst recommendations
from DLJ between January 1999 and January 2000:

5-Feb-99   DLJ             initiated: at Buy

---

Clarification of Question by johnbacktrack-ga on 27 Apr 2003 17:33 PDT

Acceptable. Tell me the web site...

Hi johnbacktrack,

You can obtain historical analyst recommendations for a particular
stock on the Yahoo! Finance web site.  The analyst recommendations go
back as far as early 1998, and they are even available for stocks that
no longer exist.

Here is the Yahoo! Finance web site:
http://finance.yahoo.com/

There is no "main" search page for the historical analyst
recommendations.  You can only obtain them after you have retrieved
the quote for a particular stock.  Here is how you would obtain the
historical analyst recommendations for a particular company (we'll use
Yahoo! Inc. as an example):

1) Go to the Yahoo! Finance web site: http://finance.yahoo.com/

2) In the ticker symbol field at the top of the page, type "YHOO"
(since that is the ticker symbol for Yahoo! Inc.), and then click on
the 'Get' button.

3) In the quote box, click on the 'Research' link.

4) In the 'Current Broker Recommendations' box, click on the 'Upgrades
& Downgrades' link.

5) All of the analyst recommendations for Yahoo! Inc. since early 1998
are returned.  They are sorted by date, with the most recent
recommendations at the top of the page.

6) Click on the 'Analyst' column header link to sort the results by
brokerage firm.  The results will appear in alphabetical order by
brokerage firm.  However, the recommendations for each brokerage firm
will not be in any particular order, so you will have to look through
them all to find the ones in a particular date range.

The instructions that I have provided above only work for existing
stocks.  They do not work for stocks that no longer exist because you
cannot obtain quotes for nonexistent stocks.


Here is how you would obtain the historical analyst recommendations
for a company whose stock no longer exists (we'll use Exodus as an
example):

1) Obtain the historical analyst recommendations for an existing
company.  For your convenience, here is a link to the historical
analyst recommendations for Yahoo! Inc.:
http://biz.yahoo.com/c/Y/YHOO.html

2) In the ticker symbol field, type "EXDS" (since that is the ticker
symbol for Exodus), and then click on the 'Analyst History by Symbol'
button.

3) Click on the 'Analyst' column header link to sort the results by
brokerage firm.  The results will appear in alphabetical order by
brokerage firm.  However, the recommendations for each brokerage firm
will not be in any particular order, so you will have to look through
them all to find the ones in a particular date range.


Here are links to the historical analyst recommendations (sorted by
brokerage firm) for the four companies that you provided:

Xpedior 
http://biz.yahoo.com/c/X/xpdr-a.html

Exodus Communications 
http://biz.yahoo.com/c/E/exds-a.html

SDL Inc Com 
http://biz.yahoo.com/c/S/sdli-a.html

Asat Holdings Ltd ADR 
http://biz.yahoo.com/c/A/astt-a.html


Another web site that provides historical analyst recommendations is
CBS MarketWatch.  Here are the historical analyst recommendations that
were returned by CBS MarketWatch for Yahoo! Inc.:
http://cbs.marketwatch.com/tools/stockresearch/upDown/default.asp?symb=YHOO&optTimeFrame=15&siteid=mktw&type=5

There are two downsides to using CBS MarketWatch, however:
1) the analyst recommendations only go back to late 2000, and
2) no analyst recommendations are returned for nonexistent stocks.


If you have any questions or concerns about this answer, please
request a clarification before rating it.

Regards,
sldreamer


Search strategy:

analyst recommendations
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&q=analyst+recommendations

I use Yahoo finance all the time and I never knew that it could do
this!  I appreciate the insight!   Thanks!

I'm glad I could help.  Thanks for the tip!

sldreamer