Coverage Initiated

On Wall Street, there are people known as analysts. Their job involves watching individual stocks and industries and giving their opinions about how the shares will likely perform. In short, they cover the stocks, in the same way that a journalist might cover sports or cover politics.

When an analyst starts covering a stock, they will issue their initial opinion. In other words, they initiate coverage. The term "coverage initiated" appears on the report to inform the readers (the readers generally being clients of the brokerage firm that employs the analyst) that the analyst isn't changing their opinion from a previous report; they didn't have a previous opinion.

So the bullet points of the report might include something like "Coverage Initiated: Strong Buy." Later reports might change this to "Rating Reiterated: Strong Buy." Or, if prospects for the stock start to fade, "Rating Change: Strong Sell."