Most stock brokerages spend lots of times gathering data from the companies themselves -- the management group, the customers, industry analysts, etc. They are

Most stock brokerages spend lots of times gathering data from the companies themselves -- the management group, the customers, industry analysts, etc. They are not making investment (BUY/HOLD/SELL) recommendations based on the past fluctuations of the market, rather on their "expert" appraisal of the company's worth versus its current stock price.