StarMine measures analyst recommendation performance on a 1-5 star scale, representing the return performance of analysts' recommendations relative to their peers. Analysts scoring 4 or 5 stars are displayed here. StarMine analyzes every recommendation, upgrade, and downgrade published by thousands of sell side analysts around the world. StarMine measures analysts two ways: relative to the industry or industries they cover (used in the industry rankings), and on a coverage-relative scale (used for an analyst's overall score).

StarMine measures analyst recommendation performance and ranks analysts within industries according to the analyst's Portfolio Return. The Portfolio Return simulates a portfolio that is built around an analyst's recommendations. The benchmark for this portfolio is the market-cap weighted average of the returns of all stocks in the industry. The portfolio is rebalanced each month and whenever the analyst adds coverage, drops coverage, or changes a rating. Analysts who have a positive Portfolio Return and rank in the top half of their industry are displayed here.

In effect, StarMine rewards analysts that have "Buy" or "Overweight" recommendations on stocks that outperform the industry, and "Sell" or "Underweight" recommendations on stocks that underperform the industry. For example, an analyst who has a "Buy" recommendation on a stock that returned 10% in an industry whose average return was 6%, would earn a score equal to the amount the stock outperformed the industry, or 4%. High-ranking analysts are those who are skilled in forecasting the direction of the stocks that they follow, relative to the given industry.

StarMine also creates coverage-relative measures of analyst recommendation performance using long-only portfolio constructions. To learn more about StarMine, please visit StarMine.com.