[CWuestefeld]

Stock prices are animal herd logic, not science

That's not how I understand your link. The study suggests to me that analyst recommendations are unreliable predictors of short-term gain. And it certainly does not show that changes in a company's overall market capitalization are based on a herd mentality.

Note that it says that those rebalancing according to advisors achieved higher terminal wealth, but lower risk-adjusted return. Most importantly, they did do better in the end. But adjusted for risk, it's worse. This suggests to me that the analysts usually do pretty well, but when they flub it, it's a doozy.