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Helping Individual Investors Achieve
Investing and Trading Success

Unbiased. Precise. Proven. Trusted.

Zacks Investment Research is one of the largest providers of independent stock, ETF and mutual fund research in the U.S. The performance of our stock research recommendations has been consistently ranked among the top research firms in the U.S. by independent evaluators of equity research.

Investars: Zacks Makes Top 3 in Quantitative Research 2020-2025

For example, independent rating organization Investars has named Zacks to the Top 3 in quantitative research from 2020 through 2025.

Our unbiased research and benchmark-beating recommendations go back nearly five decades. And it all started with a groundbreaking discovery.

Our Story

At the center of everything we do is a strong commitment to independent research and sharing its profitable developments with investors. In fact, helping investors find success has been the life's work of our Founder and CEO, who has his PhD from MIT and spent many years on Wall Street testing statistical models to help uncover ways to beat the market. This research led to the breakthrough discovery:

Earnings estimate revisions are the most powerful force impacting stock prices.

His findings were first published in 1979 in the Financial Analysts Journal, Forecasts — Accuracy Is Not Enough, making him the first to document the impact of earnings estimate revisions on stock prices. From this emerged the proven Zacks Rank, our short-term stock-rating system that harnesses the power of earnings estimates. It serves as a timeliness indicator for stocks over the next one to three months, using four factors related to earnings estimates—Agreement, Magnitude, Upside, Surprise—to classify stocks into five groups, ranging from "Strong Buy" to "Strong Sell."

Stocks with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) rating have beaten the market in 29 of the last 38 years with an average annual return of +24.00% . And, the Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) stocks have underperformed the S&P 500 by more than 3.5 times. These returns cover a period from January 1, 1988 through May 4, 2026.

Note this quantitative stock-rating system is purely mathematical. We're not influenced by Wall Street or some agenda to determine the ratings. That's why more than 500,000 investors use this stock-selection tool to trade with confidence and accomplish their financial goals.

Our Breakthroughs

The Zacks Rank was only the beginning. Our commitment to individual investors led to several breakthroughs.

  • Most Accurate Estimate: Knowing the earnings consensus for a stock is nice. Being one of the few that knows the Most Accurate Estimate is even better.
  • Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction): Determines the likelihood of an earnings surprise BEFORE it's reported.
  • Zacks Industry Rank: A top Zacks Industry Rank means more stocks within that group are receiving upward earnings estimate revisions. The top 50% of Zacks Ranked Industries outperforms the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.
  • Zacks Equity Research: Professional-grade research that combines quantitative models with insight provided by our equity analysts.
  • Zacks Mutual Fund Rank: Not just focused on past performance, but the likely future success of the fund.
  • Zacks ETF Rank: Proprietary quantitative model with a qualitative overlay for finding the best Exchange-Traded Funds in the market.
  • And much, much more.

Our Services

Zacks offers the services, resources and tools investors need to control their portfolios and achieve success.

  • Zacks Premium - Product Icon Zacks Premium unlocks access to our powerful research and tools, including the Zacks #1 Rank List, Zacks Earnings ESP Filter and Zacks Industry Rank.

  • Zacks Investor Collection - Product Icon Zacks Investor Collection provides access to all the buys and sells in real time in our longer-term investor portfolio recommendation services.

  • Zacks Ultimate - Product Icon Zacks Ultimate opens access to all the buys and sells in real time in all of our longer-term investor, short-term trading, and Innovators portfolio recommendation services.

  • Research Wizard - Product Icon Research Wizard is our stock-picking and backtesting software that includes access to 8,800 stocks and more than 30 Zacks strategies.

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Our Experts

We're characterized by a team of experts who are passionate about sharing reliable investment research.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or U.S. investment adviser or investment bank.

The Zacks #1 Rank Performance covers the period beginning on January 1, 1988 through May 4, 2026. The performance is the equal weighted performance of a hypothetical portfolio consisting of stocks with a Zacks Rank of #1 that was rebalanced monthly from January 1988 through December 2013 and weekly from 12/31/13 through Monday's open on May 4, 2026. For each stock with a Zacks Rank #1 at the beginning of the month, the total return during the month was calculated as the % change in the price of the stock from the closing price of the prior month to the closing price of the current month plus any dividends received during the month. The monthly individual stock returns were then averaged to determine the portfolio return for the month. For each stock with a Zacks Rank #1 at the beginning of the week, the total return during the week was calculated as the % change in the price of the stock from the opening price for the week to the opening price of the next week plus any dividends received during the week. The weekly individual stock returns were then averaged to determine the portfolio return for the week. If no month-end price or week end open price was available for a stock, it was not included in the portfolio return for the month or the week. The monthly and weekly returns were compounded to arrive at the annual returns. The annualized return is the annual return that, had it been achieved in each year or portion of a year, would have compounded to create the total return over the full time period. These returns are based on the list of Zacks Rank #1 Stocks that was available to clients of Zacks as of the beginning of the month, when returns were calculated monthly, or as of the beginning of the week when returns were calculated weekly. These returns are higher than the returns an investor could achieve investing real money in a portfolio of Zacks Rank #1 stocks because the returns of the hypothetical Zacks Rank #1 portfolio exclude a number of costs, including commissions incurred for trading, the average bid ask spread, the price impact of the trading and, prior to 2013, in those months when the end of the month fell on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, the overnight return from the month end close to the open on the next trading day. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit www.zacks.com/performance_disclosure for information about the performance numbers displayed above.