Regret joining sell-side, looking for advice
Title says it mostly - I spent the last ~3 years working under an absolute rockstar analyst at a boutique research shop (think II hall of famer who started his own gig) and so never got the 'traditional' sell-side experience. Setup there prohibited us from joining our clients so I wasn't able to pursue that route and figured I'd join a bigger brand name / more traditional sell-side shop to then move to the buy-side. So I did that at the beginning of this year, however it's been an absolute nightmare. The work is totally devoid of intellectual rigor (we just model to the guide and arbitrarily plug numbers). My boss is green to the space and frankly doesn't know what he's doing (he's objectively wrong on most of the things he says and has a limited grasp of finance). He's had high associate turnover and lives in a state of paranoia because of his past mistakes with clients, so I'm subjected to constant fire drills on a moment's notice regarding old work / numbers that at the time I'm not aware even exist (done months/years before my arrival). The result is feeling anxious all the time and like I'm unlearning old/good habits. My question is two-fold: 1) is this normal on the sell-side and my expectations were just set too high previously and 2) should I go to my manager / talk about switching sectors and my situation or just take the L and try to join buy side? Any thoughts or feedback appreciated.
Lol, welcome to bulge bracket, where intellectual honesty goes to die.
I disagree somewhat . Many BB force their analysts to have "balance ratings" in their sectors. Unlike smaller shops where you see nearly 0 sell/underperform rating and 90% buy/outperform rating. That said, it's not uncommon to see subpar modeling work, BB or not, but that's analyst dependent. At the same time, some analysts over engineer their models with drivers that's unverifiable and are no better than modeling close to company guidance' with minor adjustment based on other "qualitative input" and historical trends. The goal is to find real drivers of a company's stock and understand what investors are looking for when they look at a model.
Remember , your job as a sell side analyst is to sell a narrative that people will listen and want to talk to you all the time. There are many ways to get there and you need to figure out what works for you.
Agreed. To reduce to this to just "BB = bad" is just silly.
OP went from a rockstar II analyst to a completely new analyst and thought things would be the same? That makes no sense. New analyst will need to prove themselves (= more work generally) and is a 50/50 toss up on their managerial style or lack thereof.
What OP is going through is absolutely not "normal", but it is within the realm of possibility at some worse shops imo.
My boss usually does all the modeling, but I've only been working for a week and have been involved in writing thought pieces about the industry and doing initiations on companies.
I'd admit some of the day to day stuff can be tedious/copy writing work but there's at least some creativity and critical thinking mixed in with it.
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