BB's vs. Boutique Equity Research Firms
Are bulge brackets really the best research franchises to join? Looking for some perspective from folks who've worked in both BB and boutique shops.
Which environment gives better exposure, experience and training?
Are boutique analysts at a disadvantage when applying to the buy-side compared with BB's.
Is there a meaningful difference between the type of work? I've heard BB's are more about updating quarterly earnings, whereas boutiques may go in depth and provide more granular long-term analysis.
Highly regarded BB's for research: BofA, JPM, GS, MS, Barclays ??
Some Boutiques: Evercore ISI, BNP Paribas Exane, Bernstein, Wolfe Research, Redburn Atlantic, KBW, Leerink
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Analysts > Firm. Top ranked analysts and firms can be found at https://www.extelinsights.com, but even that’s not a clear indicator of your associate experience. I would argue the top boutiques (ISI, Wolfe, etc) are better than almost all BBs except likely JPM, BoA, and MS. Those 5 are basically the top 5, plus throw in Jefferies/UBS as interchangeable for that 5th spot.
thx for ranking site
Does anyone have the rankings for Software analysts (large-cap and/or small-cap)? I can only see the #1 ranked analyst.
Misleading at best. Every team on the street updates for quarterly earnings and will publish in depth reports. The differences come with corporate access, modeling, data trackers, equity raises, etc.
What are the BB equivalents for the Bernstein long-view Blackbook reports?
Yes you’re right. Generally speaking (in no order) BofA JPM Wolfe Evercore UBS Jefferies.
As someone else said, your experience in ER will almost wholly depend on your analyst. Different firms have different strategies in terms of research output but ultimately the analyst will do what they want in the medium term. Historically the boutiques (especially the ones without banking/trading) have been longer term oriented but I think that gap is narrowing.
Other differences will be breadth of clients, management access, corporate events. The top tier BBs will have all sorts of clients. Boutiques or lower tier BBs may only have exposure to a subset of that.
I have worked at both. Although people don’t like to generalize and your experience will indeed be analyst dependent, there are some major differences.
1. Market cap. The core of BB is large cap and therefore boutiques work harder at (and are more successful at) SMID caps. There are exceptions but this is in general true.
2. Associate role difference. Boutiques view associates as possible analysts one day, whereas BBs are fine cycling associates in and out. Because of this BB associates are less respected within BB than boutiques associates are within boutiques. At boutiques, your most likely promotion path is to wait a long time until your analyst leaves (which is also more rare). At BBs, there are lots of turnover but that also means they can fill your analyst’s seat with anyone else besides you even if they do leave. Advancement in both can take a long time and is somewhat luck dependent.
3. Volume. There’s just way more volume (of clients, calls, event etc) at BBs.
4. Team size. BB teams tend to be a min of 3 whereas boutiques can run 2 people. You may have better opportunities as a starting associate at boutiques which offsets the impact of #3 above.
5. Exit opportunities. With BB you likely have better exit opportunities. Lateral is also easier.
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