The leading brokerage firms employ analysts who produce recommendations for hundreds of stocks, which can not all be bought for a client portfolio. These brokerage firms then create model portfolios from all of the stocks each firm is following. These can be used as a starting point in the stock selection process to meet a specific client's risk & return needs. The process to create these lists range from a bottom up quantitative methodology, to a top down fundamental process. The model portfolios in the Zacks survey include U.S. traded equities including ADRs.

This is the second consecutive survey during a volatile stock market. What's very important to take note of in this mid-year update, is that even though the model portfolios for thirteen of the fourteen participating retail brokerages produced negative total returns for the first six months of the year, nine of them outperformed the S&P 500. Seven of the fourteen outperformed the bellwether index by a percent or better. The significance of this being that brokers continue to be a reliable investor resource for stock picks. The better performing model portfolios in the first half of 2008, contained stocks in the Computer Technology and Oil sectors. Raymond James, Morgan Keegan and Credit Suisse took first, second and third place respectively. Matrix won first place in the three year category and Goldman Sachs won the gold in the five year.

The top 14 ranked brokerages for the first half of 2008 (12/31/07 to 6/30/08) are as follows...