Quote from makloda:
Analysts are (usually) always late to the game with buy and sell recommendations. Strong stock performance forces them to add stocks to their buy lists and when a stock trends down you can see analysts flip their buys to sells one by one until it eventually bottoms out.
I always thought GS used their conviction buy list recommendation to get them and their biggest clients out of a long position in those stocks.
(in effect generating a top whilst being out of the stock.)