A conviction rating of 10 was reserved for “absolute certainty,” a level that would seem to be impossible to achieve through conventional research methods. How could a person be 100 percent certain about any event in the future, let alone the performance of a stock? The rating was how the traders communicated the value of their information to Cohen without exposing him to the details of how they knew something. Cohen relied on it to decide whether to buy for his own account. The rating system had been the idea of the compliance department, which was always trying to find ways to protect Cohen
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