Wall Street analysts, though well-educated and extraordinarily informative about stocks, suffer from groupthink. Their stock ratings tend to be overwhelmingly positive.

Tim Clift made an insightful point in his look at how earnings season works: Most companies “beat” analysts’ estimates. The problem with all this “good news,” reflected in financial-media headlines, is that it masks the real news: First-quarter earnings have fallen from a year earlier across most sectors. And if share prices are tied to earnings per share, that’s not exactly a good thing.

It’s easy for analysts to lower their earnings estimates heading into earnings season. Companies that provide earnings “guidance” to investors often do the same thing: Lower expectations to set up “beats.”

They are telling you to buy

So what about analysts’ stock ratings? Some use straight terms, such as “buy,” “sell” and “hold,” while others use “overweight” and “underweight,” which we can translate as “buy” and “sell,” respectively. The ratings and associated price targets are usually for 12-month periods. That’s too short if you’re a long-term investor. But the industry and the financial media are geared that way, because this is what investors supposedly want.

Over the past 12 months, the benchmark S&P 500 Index SPX, -1.11% has declined 2.4%, while 57% of the 500 stocks have declined in price. Those numbers really don’t mean much, but they show there have been more losers than winners.

Here’s what may surprise you: Among the S&P 500, only one stock has majority “sell” ratings among analysts, according to FactSet. Here are some numbers illustrating just how overwhelmingly sunny the analysts are:

Share of analysts with ‘buy’ ratings Number of S&P 500 stocks as of May 25 90% or higher 15 80% to 90% 37 70% to 80% 52 60% to 70% 79 51% to 60% 59 Total 242 Source: FactSet

So 242 of 505 stocks (since five S&P 500 stocks have a second class of common stock) have majority “buy” ratings. That’s 48%.

What about “sell” ratings? There’s only one S&P 500 stock with majority “sell” ratings: Transocean Ltd. RIG, -4.50% . Among the 38 sell-side analysts covering the contract driller, two rate the shares “buy,” while 15 have neutral ratings and 21, or 55%, have “sell” or “underweight” ratings.

Those are unbelievable stats. But maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise. The securities industry is designed to sell securities, after all. And it’s much easier for an analyst to have a neutral rating than go out on a limb while telling investors to sell.

Here are the 10 S&P 500 stocks with the highest share of negative ratings:

It’s not a surprise to see Transocean, Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. US:DO and Deere & Co. DE, +0.92% on the list, considering they’re in a period of great uncertainty for commodities. But let’s take a closer look at the group.

Here’s a look at sales-per-share trends:

We looked at sales per share, rather than revenue, because the per-share figures take into account any dilution from the issuance of new shares, as well as the positive effect from the repurchase of shares.

The sales-growth winner among this group is VeriSign Inc. VRSN, +0.58% , which also has achieved the best average return on invested capital over the past five years in the S&P 1500.

Clorox Co. CLX, +0.62% is familiar to investors as a market stalwart. The company increased first-quarter sales per share by 4% from a year earlier, but this reflected a 2% reduction in the share count from buybacks. Actual revenue rose only 2%, while earnings fell 7%. The good news was that the company raised its guidance for 2016 to sales growth of 1% to 2%, from its previous guidance of flat to 1% growth.

Another interesting name on the list, with more than a third of analysts rating it “sell,” is Consolidated Edison Inc. ED, -2.70% , a big electric and gas utility in New York City. The stock has a quarterly dividend of 67 cents for a yield of 3.71%, based on Tuesday’s closing price of $72.14. Warmer-than-expected weather led to a 17% decline in first-quarter EPS, ConEd said. The company is included in the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index SP50DIV, -0.92% . This is a group of 50 S&P 500 companies that have raised their dividends for at least 25 straight years. The list is maintained by S&P Dow Jones Indices.

People’s United Financial Inc. PBCT, +0.09% is included in the S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrats Index SPHYDA, -1.09% , a group of 100 companies in the S&P 1500 Composite Index that have raised their dividends for at least 20 consecutive years. The bank’s stock has a quarterly dividend of 17 cents, for a very attractive yield of 4.35%, based on Tuesday’s closing price of $15.63.

Also see: These ‘Dividend Aristocrat’ stocks have risen up to 24% a year for a decade

The main point here is that investors need to take ratings with a grain of salt. If you are considering making an investment in a company, your broker can probably provide you with one or more research reports, and these can be helpful as you do your own research. But a rating should not be the final arbiter of your decision. There are way too many “buy” ratings out there.

The most important factor is your own assessment of the company’s long-term prospects for selling products and services that people will want or need for many years. Then consider whether the company is likely to remain competitive, and your decision might not be so difficult.