What is an equalweight or “neutral” rating

Junior people on sellside equity research teams, when your analyst rates something equalweight or neutral how often is it actually a view that the stock is going down but they’re just trying to protect the client relationship and stay on good side of company in order to get corporate access? Any anecdotes you can share? Curious how this happens internally on the sellside. With all the IPOs last year and so many of those names now down dramatically, I’m trying to understand why more bearish views weren’t disclosed at initiating coverage.

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