Basically, you need to identify which kind of reports it belongs to:
1. All SGX licenced analysts are asked to produce n reports within a certain time frame (I cannot remember how long) and therefore certain reports are just produced to fullfill the requirement (we called it 'national service').
2. Some reports are not produced by analysts, instead, they are prepared by some company's staff such as people from the Institution Sales Department.
3. Reports produced by technical analysts or fundamantalist? which type suits you more?
4. Reports normally include the target price. Read this carefully because it should state it as 12-months, 6-months, 3-months or just short-term target.
5. For the same counter, some may call for 'buy' and others may call for 'sell'. So you need to gather all reports recommended by different houses and consolidate them into a table and find out what is the consensus of different analysts.
6. Who is the author? What is the author's position in the company. Junior? Senior? Years of experience? Past history of reporting?
Hence, when you read reports, you need to identify what kind of reports they are, that is which category of reports they belong to. Very importantly, is this the type of reports that you are looking for?
For now, I can only think of the above six points. Please feel free to add in more, if any.
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