Curious to know if anyone has been successful in using Python or another programming language to automate the monkey parts of Equity Research.
I'm in the process of learning Python myself and am wondering if its possible to write code that pulls line items from a 10-Q and inserts them into a valuation template into excel. I've found that I've spent too many hours hardcoding things into excel and want to know if its worth learning to code.
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Can you write a program for the associates that automatically star-1 on each earnings call, and says "thanks for taking my question and congrats on a great quarter"?
Thanks.
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For context I spent ~3 years as an ER associate and now work as a data analyst writing python/sql. I picked up python when I was in ER for the same reason and it's kind of hit or miss for making your life easier in ER/IB. For filling in numbers from a press release or 10-Q you're better off using Bloomberg/CapIQ/SPGlobal/whatever else's excel add in because they'll do it better than you and it'll be a frustrating project as you start to learn python.
if you're really interested in learning python you should find some industry data that's published regularly and write a script that will scrape the data (or get it from an API like FRED, or use a data provider's API like Bloomberg if you have access) and create a report of it using python. If you're actually able to do this it'll be much faster than copy/pasting excel or refreshing 10 tabs of data in excel and everyone you work with will think you're a wizard since most finance people think coding is like magic. You can make other projects like dashboards with macro data, some easy natural language processing with earnings calls (EG how many times did the analyst say "nice quarter guys"), entry level stats stuff like regressions, or plotting time series/valuations over the longer term as projects that are somewhat useful in ER/IB but more to build your python skills up.
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My experience with Python, SQL, and light analytics stuff from undergrad was explicitly cited as helping me get an AM offer with my firm. Like mentioned above, most fundamental financial analysts don't expect quant stuff if that's not your role, so any way you can use it to increase efficiency or streamline workflows will likely impress them. I've found SQL to be helpful for navigating data, particularly in screens etc., though it's not like you can do much with it that you couldn't do with a data provider's UI; more just a matter of preference and if you want to be a little different. Definitely more useful for combinational queries like "show me companies in the industrial sector where PE >25x, revenue is between 1b and 3b, and most recent price is at least 25% less than 1y high" as opposed to just "show me companies with >25x PE" which would be easily run on any major screening software. Haven't really found much as much of a use for Python since statistical measures and algos etc. aren't always very useful to those in fundamental roles. With that being said, if you see an opportunity, take it since it could be a great way to stand out and earn some favor! If you're still recruiting, play around and try projects that you can talk about in interviews since it'll give you a more unique skill set. Hope that helps.
Are there any specific online python courses that might come in handy for ER? Anyone have any thoughts on the WSO course?
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