At The Motley Fool, we poke plenty of fun at Wall Street analysts and their endless cycle of upgrades, downgrades, and "initiating coverage at neutral." So you might think we'd be the last people to give virtual ink to such "news." And we would be -- if that were all we were doing.

But in "This Just In," we don't simply tell you what the analysts said. We'll also show you whether they know what they're talking about. To help, we've enlisted Motley Fool CAPS, our tool for rating stocks and analysts alike. With CAPS, we'll be tracking the long-term performance of Wall Street's best and brightest -- and its worst and sorriest, too.

And speaking of the best ...
Bad news from Bear Stearns may have roiled the market on Friday, but this morning, the banker is having the opposite effect. Arguing that a delay in Take-Two's (NASDAQ:TTWO) release of Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA4) opens the door for Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS) to grab gaming market share, Bear upped the latter stock's rating to "outperform." But then, in an apparent contradiction, Bear turned around and upgraded Take-Two as well (although only to "peer perform")! Is this the kind of analyst double-think that brought us subprime mortgages packaged as AAA-rated bonds?

Not necessarily. You see, Bear seems to be taking two (pardon the pun) separate views here, timeline-wise. Endorsing EA, Bear looks at the effect of removal of a competing product from the market, short-term. Longer-term, Bear acknowledges that GTA4 will eventually reach the market and earn money for Take-Two, and sees the market's sell-off of Take-Two's stock (down another 4% today in spite of the upgrade) as a short-term overreaction that opens the door to long-term profits when the shares revive. Logical on all fronts -- but is Bear right?

Let's go to the tape
For clues to Bear's prescience, we turn once again to Motley Fool CAPS, where we've been following Bear's tracks for nearly a year. There we see that for all its subprime hedge-fund troubles, Bear's equity analysis remains right on the money. The last two times we looked at Bear recommendations, the firm scored in just the 76th and 85th percentiles, respectively. As of today, Bear has broken into the top 10 -- a 91.05 CAPS rating.

A few of the picks that have Bear roaring to the top include:

Bear Says:

CAPS Says:

Bear's Pick Beating S&P by:

Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM)

Outperform

**

55 points

Sina (NASDAQ:SINA)

Outperform

***

47 points

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Outperform

***

39 points

Still, Bear has a ways to go before it achieves the rank of "Wall Street's Best." Here are a couple of the picks that are holding it back:

Bear Says:

CAPS Says:

Bear's Pick Lagging S&P by:

Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO)

Outperform

**

27 points

Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN)

Outperform

****

29 points

Perhaps bored with bonds, Bear Stearns seems to have fallen asleep at the wheel and lost its hedge fund investors a ton of money in the process. But in the exciting world of tech, it's showing a keener eye. Investors may find it particularly intriguing that Bear racked up 19 points of market outperformance with a sell rating on Take-Two before this morning's upgrade. And with picks like RIM, Sina, and Apple, Bear has slowly but surely rebuilt its reputation as an ace stock picker.

Caveat investor
That said, I'd be remiss if I failed to point out that here at the Fool, we too have recommended Electronic Arts to members of our flagship Motley Fool Stock Advisor service. What's more, we've recommended it three times over the years -- but not this time. Fool co-founder David Gardner, who has beaten the market by an average of 27% with each of his three buy recommendations on the stock, recently hit "pause" on his buy recommendation.

Why does David disagree with Bear's bullish call? Take a free 30-day trial of Stock Advisor and find out.

Speaking of free, you can also tap the collective intelligence of our community of 60,000-plus CAPS investors on these stocks for free. Find out what Fools are saying about Take-Two and EA by clicking the appropriate links below, and pay special attention to what the score leaders are saying:

Just don't be surprised when you find out that the best investors on each of these stocks are not Wall Street wizards at all -- but ordinary individual investors just like you and me.

Fool contributor Rich Smith does not own shares of any company named above. You can find him on CAPS, publicly pontificating under the handle TMFDitty, where he's currently ranked No. 328 out of more than 60,000 players. Sina and Yahoo! are Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendations. The Fool has a disclosure policy.