To get stock analyst reports, you generally must have an account with a brokerage house. If you have an account at Merrill Lynch, for example, you will have access to research from Merrill Lynch analysts.

Some discounts brokers, such as Charles Schwab, also provide reports from certain full-service firms and other outside research providers.

Ask your broker what research he can provide, but remember: by the time you have read these reports, so have thousands of others.

As part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2003 and 2004, a dozen large brokerage firms were required to give their clients access to independent research from outside firms, alongside their own analysts’ reports, for five years. Analysts at these firms had been accused of recommending stock in companies they secretly disparaged so their own firms could win investment banking business.