Investing without the research part

I'm wondering if there are any pockets in the HF world where you can invest in companies but with research only constituting 20% of your role. I find research quite boring and academic, and instead like sourcing new ideas and running valuation analyses. Perhaps a different way of putting it is is that I want the advantage to come not from informational advantage (digging up more research than other market participants), but from either good valuation judgment or behavioral advantage.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. And yes, I have worked in the hedge fund space before as an analyst, but absolutely disliked research.

12 Comments
 

Maybe switch from an investment role to a risk management role? It’s prob more technical and less fundamental research. Idk much about hedge funds I think it’s prob impossible to escape research as an analyst or be handed a role with only 20% research.

 

Not in the industry so my opinion should be weighted appropriately, but I imagine valuation inputs are determined using either your knowledge (obtained by your research) or someone else’s knowledge (obtained by their research) that you are willing to trust. So unless you or your PM is an industry expert in the field, or you pay for an adviser, I imagine you would want to do the research yourself.

 

Sounds like you would enjoy trading more (behavioral edge, etc.).

At some point you've done enough research that you can start to recognize good investment/trade ideas more quickly without doing hours of research + analysis (oh this is another XYZ case that I've seen before), but you can't get to that point without having put in enough work to be able to recognize these opportunities (essentially analogical thinking and pattern recognition).

 
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