11 Stocks to Sell That Analysts Are Souring On

Stocks have started to crater as the novel coronavirus spread to Europe and other parts of Asia.

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Stocks have started to crater as the novel coronavirus spread to Europe and other parts of Asia. Fortunately, Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), was on hand Feb. 24, telling viewers on CNBC that folks should never sell based on headlines.

As always, the world's greatest investor dispensed excellent advice. Indiscriminate selling is too often a good way to lock in losses or forgo gains.

But that doesn't mean that investors shouldn't be looking for stocks to sell. They should, as part of a natural pruning to weed out lousy holdings and free up cash for better opportunities. To that end, some stocks looked like serious duds even before the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled almost a thousand points.

To find stocks Wall Street is most bearish on, we scoured the Center for Research in Securities Prices' (CRSP) total U.S. market index for companies with a minimum market capitalization of $500 million. Our stocks also had to have coverage by at least three analysts. Next, we turned to S&P Global Market Intelligence's recommendation roundup.

S&P Global surveys analysts' stock calls and scores them on a five-point scale, where 1.0 equals a Strong Buy and 5.0 is a Strong Sell. Scores between 3.5 and 2.5 translate into a Hold recommendation. Any score higher than 3.5 means that analysts, on average, believe the stock should be sold. The closer a score gets to 5.0, the higher their collective conviction.

Here are 11 stocks to sell that rank among the worst names listed on any major U.S. exchange. If you're still holding any of the names after the latest market selloff, you might want to rethink your commitment.

Disclaimer

Share prices, dividend yields, price targets, analysts’ ratings and other data are courtesy of S&P Global Market Intelligence as of Feb. 21, unless otherwise noted. Stocks are listed by analysts’ average recommendation from best to worst.

Dan Burrows
Senior Investing Writer, Kiplinger.com

Dan Burrows is Kiplinger's senior investing writer, having joined the august publication full time in 2016.

A long-time financial journalist, Dan is a veteran of SmartMoney, MarketWatch, CBS MoneyWatch, InvestorPlace and DailyFinance. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Consumer Reports, Senior Executive and Boston magazine, and his stories have appeared in the New York Daily News, the San Jose Mercury News and Investor's Business Daily, among other publications. As a senior writer at AOL's DailyFinance, Dan reported market news from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and hosted a weekly video segment on equities.

Once upon a time – before his days as a financial reporter and assistant financial editor at legendary fashion trade paper Women's Wear Daily – Dan worked for Spy magazine, scribbled away at Time Inc. and contributed to Maxim magazine back when lad mags were a thing. He's also written for Esquire magazine's Dubious Achievements Awards.

In his current role at Kiplinger, Dan writes about equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities, funds, macroeconomics, demographics, real estate, cost of living indexes and more.

Dan holds a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree from Columbia University.

Disclosure: Dan does not trade stocks or other securities. Rather, he dollar-cost averages into cheap funds and index funds and holds them forever in tax-advantaged accounts.