The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that it was a tough year for Bay Street's big-name stock-pickers. The Globe's Tim Shufelt writes that not only did those equities with the very highest analyst ratings at the start of 2018 underperform the market, they were among the segments of the market to post the worst returns on the year. While a global downturn in commodities was responsible for many busted top picks, the list of analyst darlings which flopped in 2018 spans almost every sector of the Canadian stock market. Why might the highest-rated stocks be more vulnerable to the kind of broad market corrections seen in 2018? One reason is a reluctance by equity research analysts to cast doubt on the market's hottest stocks -- they are likely to be almost universally bullish at the top, when there is a lot of risk to the downside. One former sell-side analyst said, "When a darling falls from grace, it's going to get absolutely crushed." Stocks with little to zero negative analyst coverage at the start of the year include Spin Master, SNC-Lavalin Group, Chorus Aviation, Intertape Polymer Group, Detour Gold, Altus Group and Boralex. Each of those names fell by at least 20 per cent on the year.