What is popular on Wall Street? The table below lists the most followed stocks in the S&P 500. These aren’t necessarily the stocks with the highest analyst ratings, they are the stocks with the most analyst coverage.
According to Bloomberg, there are 61 analysts following Apple, 57 following Google, and 55 following Facebook. What possible value does the 35th analyst following Apple add, let alone the 61st, that the 34th analyst has missed? Seems like an awful waste of time and effort.
Looks more like a who’s-who of speculation than a list of stocks that a long-term investor would choose from. Every stock on the list is a tech company and only four out of the ten pay a dividend compared to more than eight out of ten S&P 500 companies.
If you want to hang with the popular crowd on Wall Street, be my guest, but remember what your mother told you about choosing your friends. When you lay down with dogs, you are liable to get fleas.
| Name | Yield | No. Analysts Following |
| APPLE INC | 1.59 | 61 |
| GOOGLE INC-A | – | 57 |
| FACEBOOK INC-A | – | 55 |
| AMAZON.COM INC | – | 53 |
| INTEL CORP | 2.63 | 51 |
| EBAY INC | – | 51 |
| CISCO SYSTEMS | 2.8 | 47 |
| EMC CORP/MA | 1.45 | 47 |
| SALESFORCE.COM | – | 45 |
| NETFLIX INC | – | 45 |
Jeremy Jones, CFA
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