ResearchTeam TM research is a team-based approach to investment research, based on the universe of companies covered by four underlying third-party research providers-CFRA, Ford Equity Research, TheStreet and MarketEdge. Rules are applied to the four providers' recommendations to form an overall "team recommendation" for each company covered. Following the "wisdom of crowds" idea, the theory is that the team recommendation will outperform the individual provider recommendations.

ResearchTeam TM is a unique third-party research tool that employs a 'wisdom of crowds' approach to investment research. The concept is simple: a combination (a team) of different research providers providing company recommendations perform better than the recommendations of individual research providers alone. Performance measurement is traditionally used to find the "best" research provider. Certain providers may have poor performance, but may still add overall value if their strengths are used in combination with another research provider.

This list of securities represents those companies which have been upgraded by ResearchTeamTM in the last two weeks. For example, if ResearchTeamTM raised its recommendation from a HOLD rating to an ACCUMULATE rating (or a REDUCE to a HOLD rating) in the last two weeks, that company would be included in this list. The success of ResearchTeamTM recommendations over the last year is displayed in the Rating Accuracy column which gives the percentage of recommendations that were successful in terms of total return. The list only includes companies where the team upgraded the company, not individual team members. Reiterations of ratings and initiations of coverage are not included in this list. Multiple upgrades by the team in a two week period for one company will only result in a single entry on this list. Please see the Recent Downgrades report for a list of recently downgraded companies.

This list of securities represents those companies which have been downgraded by ResearchTeamTM in the last two weeks. For example, if ResearchTeamTM lowered its recommendation from an ACCUMULATE rating to a HOLD rating (or a HOLD to a REDUCE rating) in the last two weeks, that company would be included in this list. The success of ResearchTeamTM recommendations over the last year is displayed in the Rating Accuracy column which gives the percentage of recommendations that were successful in terms of total return. The list only includes companies where the team as a whole provided a downgrade - not individual team members. Reiterations of ratings and initiations of coverage are not included in this list. Multiple downgrades in a two week period for one company will only result in a single entry on this list. Please see the Recent Downgrades report for a list of recently upgraded companies.