Let's be real. Well, sort of. Analyst upgrades and downgrades are a freakin Jedi mind trick on the public. If you've been trading for a few years, you've probably been screwed by this Jedi mind trick on at least one occasion. The only way us small traders can combat the Jedi mind trick is to be good at technical analysis. Often institutions begin pulling their money out weeks in advance of a analyst downgrade. You can see this in the chart if you know technical analysis. Case in point: crude oil market. The crude oil market has been under selling pressure for awhile now. I think you will find the video below useful as it will show you a bearish divergence in oil, and a few other things.