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Failed in what way? To become super-rich? Or failed to achieve anything at all? There are degrees to "failure". I would rather try and succeed only in part - which in absolute terms would be "failure" - than not try at all and not achieve anything. If you assume that every man's hand is against...

Unfortunately this isn't something you can change through argument. Words don't help change minds as closed and as lacking in inter-cultural experience as the one belonging to the person who posted that comment. A Canadian friend of mine suggested that this was a natural consequence of living in...

My feeling is that it's difficult to make a persuasive argument for protectionism being a factor in the lack of success of the US auto industry overseas, because nobody other than Americans even tries to buy US autos. By "US autos" I mean cars designed and built by US companies for the US...

Can anybody recommend portfolio management software for swing or longer term investors? I am using Excel at the moment but making it do what I want will take so many hours of my time that I might as well pay somebody to do it instead. Suggestions appreciated. Suss

Interesting, as you say, but is it anything more than a sophisticated version of "buy the rumour, sell the fact"? Suss

It's easy to make unproven assertions, or assertions that rely on a conspiracy theory. This particular assertion is as sensible as saying that "trader" is synonymous with "crook" or that "surgeon" is synonymous with "crook". If you read through ET and other sites on the net there are many...

That's absolutely right. This is probably why clients like to actually meet analysts and get a feel for their level of confidence on the stocks they cover. "Give me your highest conviction ideas" is probably the question most frequently asked of an analyst during a presentation these days. Suss

The implication appears to be that those who don't take a salary - perhaps you are thinking of traders - are whiter than white? Reading between the lines one could interpret the message as being that analysts and investors are corporate weasels with neither soul nor morals whereas traders are...

OK, just one last response. To return to earlier comments: 1) Having met many, many analysts I haven't found any who don't believe in what they're doing (I'm sure there are some, but I have not met them). And if they don't believe what they're saying, clients catch them pretty quickly...

Why am I posting in this thread?? :confused: There's no way people are going to change their minds. Back to observer role... :cool: Suss

What is the cost to the analyst or the firm that employs him of talking about a recommendation? Zero cost, or even a small benefit, because the marketing is useful for the firm. The work has already been done, why not talk about it? If the analyst were to appear on TV and say something...

Ultimately, their job is to make money for clients because that's what makes money for the firm. If you make money for clients with good calls or consistently useful opinion then you get to the top of the Institutional Investor polls - these rankings are voted for by clients, not the firms the...

1) An analyst can only influence the market if he has credibility i.e. people watch him and follow his research. 2) If he makes changes to ratings that are arbitrary and/or unexplained he will lose that credibility. 3) As a result the analyst will no longer be followed by clients and will no...

Not sure I understand you. Are you saying that the clients of all IBs are dumb? Suss

OK, I can understand why people want to think that, but given the lack of economic incentive for the analyst, what is the reasoning behind your conclusion? I mean, I realise that I can't disprove a conspiracy theory but I would be interested in the thought behind it. Suss

Pretty naive interpretation. :D I'm not saying that corruption does not exist in the industry, any more than I would claim that corruption doesn't exist in (say) the legal profession, but the kind of simple corruption outlined is not viable and I believe the incidence is very low. As a...

I don't know about new regulations but this has been industry practise for at least 4-5 years - the legal consequences of not doing it this way don't bear thinking about. :) Suss

For the sake of the thread originator, I will point out that it's precisely because traders can take advantage of it that the investment banks are required to tell everybody at the same time. Just imagine if the analyst told a couple of favourite clients that he was going to change his rating a...

Well, they are telling their clients. As I already pointed out, the firm can't really avoid making it public even though they may not announce it publicly themselves. The clients are the whole spectrum of investors e.g. pension fund managers, mutal funds, hedge funds and so on. The investment...

The firms for which the analysts work upload this information (changes to rating or target price) to Bloomberg, First Call etc. The firms do this because they have a legal duty to let all their clients know of such changes simultaneously. Only letting certain investors know would be preferential...