A new study by three professors on the impact of securities analysts on stock prices indicates that analysts play no real role in the market other than generally increasing awareness of the companies they follow. The study by Dr. Oya Altinkiliç of the University of Pittsburgh and Dr. Robert Hansen and Vadim Balashov of Tulane University found that "analysts generally do not provide meaningful investment advice for investors,” and that their recommendations did not affect stock prices.

Altinkiliç told the Hürriyet Daily News that the study was prompted by the authors' discomfort "with the idea that analysts could somehow obtain new information about a firm’s stock by scouring widespread information sources that are already available to investors. This widely held belief seemed a little too far-fetched for us.” She added that “[e]ven if we were to agree that analysts could somehow uncover such valuable information, over and over again, it seems too naive to believe that they would give that information away through stock recommendations, rather than using the information inside their brokerage, through proprietary trading strategies and advising large investor clients.”

Altinkiliç also states that while analysts can expand investor awareness about firms and stocks they follow, that does not mean that "analyst stock picks and forecasts are a good source of information for investor trading.”