Underperform

Underperform in the finance and business context carries the same meaning as in common parlance i.e. something that has or is expected to perform worse than expected. In the context of analysts making stock recommendations to investors, underperform is a signal that an analyst is forecasting that a given stock will perform less well than its index or less well than the analyst had initially forecast. While not an outright sell signal, it is a signal that an investor should hold the position with less conviction.