How authentic is sell-side quant research

Hi my favourite WSO,

A semi-technical question here. Simply put, how authentic is sell-side quant research?

I see on LinkedIn that some BBs have groups of math / economics PhDs producing quant trading ideas. And I also see sell-side research* put out thorough trade plans for their clients.

Naturally, I'll compare these sell-side trade ideas and my HF ideas and ask myself - do such sell-side ideas amount to an actual dollar return in my fund's account? Because if that's the case, how easy would a PM's job be? They'll take idea A from Citi, idea B from DB and get his analysts to implement.

And I also wonder. Why is the recent news on dismal HF returns when some funds are made up of these exact researchers with power ideas from the sell-side?

More technically, maybe the sell-side research is just meant to sell. So in the details, you'll find the missing parts that they conveniently miss out, which is my experience is transaction cost.

Cheers, Nijikon

*See this publicly available beautifully illustrated analysis of a carry strategy by DB https://etf.deutscheam.com/LUX/ENG/Download/Research-Global/4eaff610-5cb1-4b58-acbc-b54384e1e1b3/Volcano.pdf