Every day, the sun rises on Wall Street, and a plethora of professional analysts wake to issue new opinions on stocks. Here at the Fool, we use our "This Just In" column to examine some of these picks -- and the track records of the firms behind them -- so individuals can make better investing decisions.

In addition to following professional banks, anyone can use Motley Fool CAPS to monitor the collective opinions of more than 115,000 members, many of whom demonstrate better investing insight than published analysts do.

More top-performing CAPS members are feeling bullish on E*Trade Financial (NASDAQ:ETFC) these days, enough to upgrade it from its three-star rank to a more formidable four stars. A large base of 2,413 members have given their opinion on E*Trade, with many of them offering analysis and commentary explaining the recent optimism.

While they don’t face the same magnitude of capital problems as big Wall Street brokers like Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) or Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), discount online brokers like E*Trade, Charles Schwab (NASDAQ:SCHW), and TDAmeritrade (NASDAQ:AMTD) have nonetheless taken hits lately, as market turmoil has some retail traders taking a step back. Not that the panic isn't encouraging itchy trigger fingers -- exchanges like NYSE Euronext (NYSE:NYX) and Nasdaq OMX (NASDAQ:NDAQ) have been seeing record volumes lately as investors pounce on beaten-down stocks.

New management has been working to get back to basics and recover from bad mortgage investments made in recent years. To this end, E*Trade has been selling assets to shore up its balance sheet, including selling $145 million in assets to HSBC and unloading its Canadian unit for $515 million to Bank of Nova Scotia. By selling assets, the company can keep a focus on the trading platform it does best -- an approach many CAPS members like to see, and that they believe will make the company emerge stronger than before. As such, more than 92% of CAPS members rating E*Trade expect it to outperform the market.

To see what the very best CAPS analysts are saying now about E*Trade -- as well as other winning stocks they are picking -- head on over to CAPS and have a look. The community research and resources in CAPS are totally free, unlike analyst opinions reserved for paying clients.

More Foolishness: