One event that is almost certain to get a reaction from Wall Street is an analyst upgrade or downgrade. Everyone is looking for an edge in the stock market, and quite often, traders turn to stock analysts to get that edge. Today is no exception.

American States Water Company (AWR) [Chart - News - Analysis] was upgraded from Hold » Buy on 9/8/2009 by Brean Murray. FYI, Brean Murray uses the following rating scale when analyzing stocks: Buy, Hold, Sell

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American States Water Company has an average analyst recommendation score of 2.2 and competes with American Water Works Company, Inc. (AWK) [Chart - News - Analysis] and Aqua America Inc. (WTR) [Chart - News - Analysis]---two other stocks in the Water Utilities industry that have average analyst recommendation scores of 2. and 1.8 respectively.

Analyst recommendations are averaged and scored using the following rating scale:

- 1.0 = Strong Buy

- 2.0 = Buy

- 3.0 = Hold

- 4.0 = Sell

- 5.0 = Strong Sell

What is a Stock Analyst?

Check out the Understanding Stock Analyst Research and Recommendations video and article for more info.

A stock analysts is a person---typically employed by a large bank, investment firm or analysis company---who devotes his/her life to learning and making predictions about a company and its future performance.

Stock analysts sift through company reports and filings, talk to company management, probe customers and competitors and basically do whatever they can to find out if a company is healthy and growing or sick and shrinking. Because this is incredibly demanding work, stock analysts typically only monitor one or two companies at a time.

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