There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but now there is free, high-quality information for investors, thanks to the savvy MBA students in accounting Associate Professor Rob Bloomfield's equity research course at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management.

On May 20 the students posted on the World Wide Web a semester's worth of carefully researched stock information on companies they have identified as good investments largely ignored by professional analysts at investment firms. Many of the students will join such firms when they graduate this May 30 and will command high fees for their equity-research skills gained by taking courses like Bloomfield's.

Their well-researched picks, which were presented and critiqued in class, are available to all at the Johnson School's Parker Center for Investment Research web site http://parkercenter.johnson.cornell.edu/CER.html.

Last fall Bloomfield's students made a number of prescient picks. "Buy" recommendations included Airtouch Communications, as of last week up 86 percent from the date the students initially recommended buying, and Children's Place, up a whopping 392 percent.

This semester many of the students' favorites are high-technology stocks. One MBA student in the course, Kunal Madhukar, selected a rising-star telecommunications company as a good investment. He determined that the firm will have a visible "footprint" in global digital telecommunications starting this fall. Its product has a simple technical design that is easier to deploy and manage than those of competitors, he commented, and its potential market is large and easily reached. What's more, the company is in a position to offer a better product to people who are currently underserved. Classmates were wary of the proposed investment, however, noting that the company is so new it is only able to show investors projected earnings, not solid investment statistics.

The group also is recommending stocks in the health food industry. A vitamin and health supplement company was identified by MBA students Anna Beck, Tatiana Spineanu and Tim Takacs as a good long-term buy, but not necessarily one that would offer short-term gain. The company tried to expand too fast last year and lost much of its value, they noted, but this year it is doing well in the growing but fragmented vitamin, health supplement and mineral industry. Its earnings per share continue to rise while its price-to-earnings ratio keeps on narrowing. If the company follows through on its plans to reduce operating expenses while growing internationally through acquisitions, its relatively low-priced stock is an excellent pick. The class agreed that a more health conscious public would help the company prosper over the long term.

MBA student Gregory Buchcic selected a timeshare business that targets lower-income buyers. He praised it for its strong management and for choosing to sell to a segment of the market with few competitors. Buchcic's classmates and the professor were chary of the investment recommendation, however, and when a straw vote was taken, few recommended buying. "Companies like that one, which use a very aggressive revenue-recognition strategy to recognize future years' earnings in the present year, tend to do poorly in the long run," warned Bloomfield. In the end the group persuaded Buchcic to rate the company a "market performer."

The students also recognized that selling, rather than buying, can be a way to make money. One group recommended that investors sell American Greetings stock, then trading in the low 40s. The stock now trades at about 27. "It is hard to find professional analysts who are willing to say 'sell,'" said Bloomfield. "They have too many pressures to please the companies' management and the investors who already own the stock. But our class doesn't have these pressures, so we are willing to say 'sell,' even when Wall Street is still waffling or even recommending to 'buy.'"

While all the reports were rigorously researched -- Bloomfield required his students to do both an industry and a company analysis -- he cautioned them not to assume that their findings were a foolproof way to get rich quick.

"People tend to fall in love with a story," he said, but genuine investment bargains are hard to find. "You can't defy the economic laws of gravity. The fact is that markets are efficient most of the time. While there may be a handful of opportunities to find pockets of inefficiency that can be explained, you should approach the task humbly."

And where does Bloomfield invest his money? "Personally," he said, "I'm a believer in indexed funds" -- investment funds that don't require equities-research skills. One more caveat: Bloomfield emphasized that the research reports are an academic endeavor, not a professional one.

The Johnson Graduate School of Management is not responsible for students' or other investors' losses or gains from any of the stocks listed on the Johnson School's Parker Center web site at Cornell.