So I am fairly new to the stock market and I have started to dabble in looking at ratings other people give stocks. I am very confused by the existence of these things because of course the stock market isn't going to behave as predicted if everyone is reading the same buy/sell signals so what is going on here?

Do you think any of the research groups publishing these do so to an extent to manipulate the market?

Is it usually too late to buy a stock when everyone is saying buy? How important is it to make bets that give you a chance to be ahead of the curve?

Should I even be reading what analysts like investopedia or services like zacks.com say?