So Congress batted around some Wall Street analysts yesterday for rating Enron highly even though the company was obviously in deep trouble and its stock was in free fall. The CNNfn article I link to concludes with the obvious question — why does anybody heed the stock ratings provided by Wall Street analysts. If there’s anything that recent history has taught us, it’s that companies can go right down the tubes wearing “strong buy” ratings all the way. It’s obvious to this observer that stock analysts are not paid to provide objective analysis of equities. If they were, then they would actually rate at least some companies negatively. To put it bluntly, if you purchase a stock because a Wall Street analyst rates it a “buy,” you ought not be investing in the stock market in the first place.