It's the time of year when brokers are likely to offer you their top stock recommendations for the new year.

"These are the stocks to own in 2011," they'll say. "They're the ones our analysts recommend most strongly right now." Then they'll tell you all sorts of compelling reasons their analysts love the stocks, possibly coupled with impressive "price targets" for the year.

Should you take their advice?

Before you do, take a look at how their recommendations fared last year. And the years before that.

I thought I'd do just that.