A quota for analyst sell recommendations may mean better stock research from brokers.

From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance:

Big brokerage firms are still trying to wipe away the stain of the tainted stock research they foisted on investors during the Internet bubble of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Back then, as it turned out, some analysts hoping to win investment-banking business for their employers were praising stocks in public that they were dissing in private. Although some of the most egregious conflicts have disappeared since regulators in 2003 forced Wall Street’s major players to improve their research, the system is still dubious.

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