Overview of the Equity research Industry

I was motivated to make this thread after reading a lot of the other threads in this forum, about why certain top analysts are still on the sell-side. It appears that almost everyone who doesn't work on the buy-side or sell-side, or even a remotely close front office position fails to understand how equity research works, and what purpose it serves.

Let me start off by giving you some information on my background. I've been working in equity research at BB for close to 7 months now for a high ranked analyst in the consumer sector.

Poor Quality Sell Side Equity Research

I don't argue this fact, and I don't think anyone else does. But just because it is crap doesn't mean it is useless. Sell-side equity research content from the average analyst does one thing for buy-siders: it makes their life easier.

Sell-side teams (including mine) do a lot of the mundane analysis that buy-siders can't be bothered with, but nonetheless find valuable. As an example, buy-siders will often just use the sell-siders model as a template to work off of rather than create their own, thereby saving hours of work. So creating detailed, well structured models are adored by the buy-side, regardless of how meaningless the assumptions are.

The 10% of the sell-siders that are very good at their job, and are phenomenal analysts are the ones that buy-siders actually care for their opinion about. For example, one of our biggest competitors at another firm put out a very detailed, well thought, and original pitch for a company of ours to break up or go through a significant restructuring. This piece garnered a lot of attention for him, and every buy-sider interested in the stock cared about what this guy had to say.

So the conclusion to my first point is, even though most analysts suck, their work is still useful to the buy-side, and there are a few really good analysts that everyone listens to what their research has to say.

Corporate access

The biggest value add for the 90% of crappy analysts on the street, and the reason why they keep their job despite putting out crappy reports.

I work along side an analyst who is barely ranked in his sector, doesn't issue any reports besides the earnings review and occasional pieces, and not much of original content. But there is one thing that he does that he does good: corporate access. He covers 20 companies, and he has very good relationship with the management team of at least half of them. He is able to set up non-deal roadshows etc that clients love him for and he is a huge value add for them.

If you think an analyst can only be good by creating good reports, than you don't understand equity research. There are two ways for analysts to build their research franchise: 1) content or 2) marketing.

As I already mentioned, only a handful of analysts are good at the content part. The marketing part is where the strength for the rest of them is. Generally if they aren't good at one of these two, they won't be an analyst for very long.

Equity Research to Buy Side

This is the topic that everyone outside of the industry thinks they know but have absolutely no idea. It was so painful for me to read the other thread that I was referring to earlier and have people say "well just go read what Einhorn and Ackman think about these guys". Let me give you a newsflash EINHORN AND ACKMAN ARE 0.0000000001% of the buy-side....THEY ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF HOW THE BUY-SIDE WORKS ON AVERAGE

With that said, MANY people from research move over from the sell-side to the buy-side. And they are preferred at the average fund over bankers because research guys have a much better understanding of how the markets work and what moves the stock than the bankers who covered the same sector and same companies.

I must note that the people who usually move over from research to buy-side are associates and not the analysts. And there are several reasons for this, but I'm going to first cover the associates.

Associates have 3 options when it comes to career progression: 1) become an analyst covering their own sector, 2) go to corp finance/investor relations/some other career, 3) go to the buy-side

Believe it or not, I would say most associates go the 2/3 route over the more obvious choice of becoming an analyst. I think the reasons for this are as follows: 1) they realize the skills that are necessary to be a top 10 analyst and don't feel they posses them, 2) they enjoy the pure analytical aspect of the industry and don't want to deal with the marketing or 3) some buy-sider approached them first and becoming a sell-side analyst is still a few years down the road. Some also just go into IR/corporate finance/other because they are just sick of the wall street lifestyle.

Analysts, on the other hand, are much less likely to go to the buy-side (imo). The reasons include a dramatic lifestyle change or they just aren't good stock pickers but are good marketers instead.

I think the reason the best analysts on the sell-side do not leave for the buy-side is the change in lifestyle. Buy-side life is a lot more stressful than being a successful sell-side analyst. My analyst works 30 hours a week, works from home mostly so he sees his family a lot, and when he travels, it is usually for marketing events where there is a lot of socializing and fun. And by doing all this, he easily clears over a million a year, more than enough to live a very comfortable life.

Now he could move over to the buy-side and get paid more, but he probably won't see his family as much, he will probably work more hours, from the office rather than home, he won't be able to sleep if he makes a bad bet on earnings, he will wake up in the middle of the night and check is BB for the Asian markets are doing.

Most top analysts do not want this, and this is why they choose to stay where they are.

ER as an industry

ER will always be around...and anyone who thinks that it is not is crazy. Aside from the content, ER is the liaison between investors and corporations...and there will always be the need for the liaison. Big institutional guys pay hundreds of millions of dollars each year just for the industry to perform its duty as a liaison, content aside. And that isn't going anywhere. You can talk about equity volumes all you want, you can believe ER is a cost center all you want (which is not true), but the industry is going no where. Will it shrink? I don't know..maybe, but it it will still be here because there is still a lot of money left for clients to spend to access the services ER offers.

Recommended Reading

 

Buy Side more stressful than sell-side analyst role? That's a bit of a stretch don't you think? I think there is much less job security for the buy-side, but they get the sell-side report in their hands in the morning by 8:30 am ET, who do you think is doing that write up? Some guy on the sell-side who got nailed with an announcement at 8 pm the night before...and another one at 6 am from a different company the next morning...then there's earnings crap 4 times a year that buy-siders do not have to do as much plug and chug on...Buy-siders seem to have it pretty good when it comes to hours.

 
Aston Gekko:
Buy Side more stressful than sell-side analyst role? That's a bit of a stretch don't you think? I think there is much less job security for the buy-side, but they get the sell-side report in their hands in the morning by 8:30 am ET, who do you think is doing that write up? Some guy on the sell-side who got nailed with an announcement at 8 pm the night before...and another one at 6 am from a different company the next morning...then there's earnings crap 4 times a year that buy-siders do not have to do as much plug and chug on...Buy-siders seem to have it pretty good when it comes to hours.

I was actually referring to a top ranked sell side analyst vs their pm/senior buyside analyst counterpart. In terms of hours, they both work about the same with the buysiders working market hours at a minimum, while the top ranked analyst usually has a rock star associate who gets hit with the write up from the 8pm announcement, not the analyst.

One other thing that sell-siders have going for them is this: if you are a buy sider and you just made apple your number one position when it was at 700 vs you are a top sell side analyst who made apple a buy when it was at 700... Which one do you think sleeps better at night? Unless you have church and Dwight in your portfolio as your number 1 position, I would say a pm/senior research analyst has more to worry about on a daily basis versus a top ranked analyst who already has his system established and doesn't have to worry to much about losing his job.

 
Aston Gekko:
Buy Side more stressful than sell-side analyst role? That's a bit of a stretch don't you think? I think there is much less job security for the buy-side, but they get the sell-side report in their hands in the morning by 8:30 am ET, who do you think is doing that write up? Some guy on the sell-side who got nailed with an announcement at 8 pm the night before...and another one at 6 am from a different company the next morning...then there's earnings crap 4 times a year that buy-siders do not have to do as much plug and chug on...Buy-siders seem to have it pretty good when it comes to hours.

90% of the time the analyst won't look at it. Which is why said morning note is shit. And every good fund covers earnings for positions in the fund and investments they are considering at least as closely as the buyside. Which means unless its a tiger cub, that 25-50 positions for 3-5 junior guys. Earnings season is busy.

 
Aston Gekko:
Buy Side more stressful than sell-side analyst role? That's a bit of a stretch don't you think? I think there is much less job security for the buy-side, but they get the sell-side report in their hands in the morning by 8:30 am ET, who do you think is doing that write up? Some guy on the sell-side who got nailed with an announcement at 8 pm the night before...and another one at 6 am from a different company the next morning...then there's earnings crap 4 times a year that buy-siders do not have to do as much plug and chug on...Buy-siders seem to have it pretty good when it comes to hours.
 

This is pretty much 100% accurate. It's all about access to management for us in terms of getting with a sell sider. And if we can't get access to management for some reason, we'll be more than happy to hear what your thoughts are on objective things about management. And maybe even some subjective if you're in that 10% OP mentioned. +1

I hate victims who respect their executioners
 
Best Response

Normally I see a post where someone says "I have seven months experience" its pretty full of shit and poorly formed ideas, this is pretty acurate. There are lots of analysts out there that have no value add, you'd get as much from reading the press release as you do their research report. That said, there are some guys that are really good at the value add, which is the hard part, in addition to writing 'this happened' in your report, need to get some 'this is what it means', and 'this is why it's important'.

You see so many companies with 12 guys covering them, how many are value add. A lot of times analysts pick up coverage names because the sales desk or bankers tell them to. If you have coverage on a name, you can trade it and you can bank it.

Interesting math for all the aspiring ER monkeys, take the comp you want to earn, then divide it by 0.10. So $300,000/0.1= ~$3 million required top line revenue/year. Divided by 12: $250,000 top line revenue/month. Divide that by average comission, 1% for giggles: $25 million. That's how much stock your names under coverage have to trade each month for you to get paid $300k/year. OP covers 20 names, so his bank needs to trade at least $1.25 million on each of those names per month. More if they actually want to pay OP the associate.

 
overpaid_overworked:

Interesting math for all the aspiring ER monkeys, take the comp you want to earn, then divide it by 0.10. So $300,000/0.1= ~$3 million required top line revenue/year. Divided by 12: $250,000 top line revenue/month. Divide that by average comission, 1% for giggles: $25 million. That's how much stock your names under coverage have to trade each month for you to get paid $300k/year. OP covers 20 names, so his bank needs to trade at least $1.25 million on each of those names per month. More if they actually want to pay OP the associate.

This assumes research drives no IBD revenue, which is not true for a lot of banks. And allocating revenue to research from IBD is illegal.

 
Amphipathic:
OP, how much do you think ER reports are biased because the authors are afraid of pissing off management and getting their corporate access cut off? Are top analysts immune from this?

Every analyst thinks about it. The longest-tenured analysts might not have ever used an underperform rating. You could use such a rating and the company could potentially be sympathetic and still grant access (like if it's purely valuation driven).

 
freemarketeer:
Amphipathic:
OP, how much do you think ER reports are biased because the authors are afraid of pissing off management and getting their corporate access cut off? Are top analysts immune from this?

Every analyst thinks about it. The longest-tenured analysts might not have ever used an underperform rating. You could use such a rating and the company could potentially be sympathetic and still grant access (like if it's purely valuation driven).

Gotcha, thanks for the insight!

 

How often do those in ER go for MBAs? Or do they usually go for other types of graduate degrees? If they go for MBAs, do they have any luck getting into the top of the top schools? Also, are there any other exit opps that you've seen that aren't exactly in the top 3 you mentioned, but still, at least, slightly common?

Oh yeah, is going from ER to actual trading fairly doable?

If your dreams don't scare you, then they are not big enough. "There are two types of people in this world: People who say they pee in the shower, and dirty fucking liars."-Louis C.K.
 

Back when I was a junior buside analyst my main use for sell-side analysts (other than arranging meetings with management) was to double check I wasnt missing something. For example if I thought that there was a significant catalyst for Company X (divestiture of non-core business, new product launch, increased R&D spending etc) I would speak to all the analysts to ensure that I had all the possible information and hadnt missed a footnote somewhere, or an aside during an earnings call. Essentially I used them to challenge my assumptions before speaking with a PM.

I dont think anyone actually reads the daily analyst notes though.

 
IamObama:
I think the reason the best analysts on the sell-side do not leave for the buy-side is the change in lifestyle. Buy-side life is a lot more stressful than being a successful sell-side analyst. My analyst works 30 hours a week, works from home mostly so he sees his family a lot, and when he travels, it is usually for marketing events where there is a lot of socializing and fun. And by doing all this, he easily clears over a million a year, more than enough to live a very comfortable life.

Is this really representative of all analysts or is your boss more of an outlier?

 
NYBC02:
IamObama:
I think the reason the best analysts on the sell-side do not leave for the buy-side is the change in lifestyle. Buy-side life is a lot more stressful than being a successful sell-side analyst. My analyst works 30 hours a week, works from home mostly so he sees his family a lot, and when he travels, it is usually for marketing events where there is a lot of socializing and fun. And by doing all this, he easily clears over a million a year, more than enough to live a very comfortable life.

Is this really representative of all analysts or is your boss more of an outlier?

This is pretty representative of established analysts who have a good system going and have very reliable associates. Hours may vary a little bit though depending on sector/time of year/activity in the market.
 

Outstanding stuff, and 100% accurate -- including the part about transitioning to buy-side. We typically hire ER guys, not IB guys (unless they went to another buyside shop afterwards) due to better understanding of the markets and specific drivers that move stock prices.

We also use sell-side guys that don't provide good insights pretty much just for market research/surveys and access to management/conferences. Thanks for the great write-up. +1

 

I'm not OP but my opinon on some of the questions asked:

Ampithatic: Almost everyone is pressured in some way to be positive, if not by management, then by banking, or sales or history. If you call something your "Top Pick for 2013", it's awefully tough to go back and say that you were wrong and it's a dog.

Wolverine: Interestingly, I went and got an MBA because I wanted to make a move from ER to IB. Depending on the school you apply for it might actually work out for the positive. MBA programs don't want all bankers or all lawyers, they like a balance, so coming from not-banking can improve the chances of getting it.

NYB: I don't know that 30 hour weeks are representative. My Analyst is in for 40-45, depending on the load. We published 250 times last year, and so I was 65-70 hours a week. Granted, we cover juniors and have been activley culling our coverage list, re: new initiations and dropping coverage on old names.

Sonibubu: From our point of view going Buy Side is when guys decide to settle down and work less, I've noticed that bankers tend to go to the issuer side. Depending on which firms we're talking to, some only use us for screening new companies to put on the radar, some check their assumptions against ours, and a few, very few actually care what we have to say.

 
AQM:
What's the pay progression like in equity research? How much do junior associates, associates, and MD's at well known boutiques and BB's make?

I'm not really sure of the answer to this question. I know pay used to be a lot higher...back in 06/07 top associates were getting paid 50k bonuses so you could figure how much analysts were making. No idea about pay at boutiques make. But most MDs that are ranked in their sector will clear 1M or close to it. Most analysts who just start out probably won't even break 400k in their first 3-4 years as an analyst...Analyst pay is really based on merit and performance for the most part. There is an actual number that defines your quantitative contribution to the firm (the vote on fees from buy side analysts)

 

I love those 100+ page industry primers or initial coverages when i'm starting to enter a new sector. Saves time and money since they use all the 3rd party $4k reports included in their forecast. So in my example, I did a lot of TMT so besides the headline stuff like PC, Smartphone, Tablets, etc. I would not be able to get my hands on IDC, Gartner forecasts for other markets unless I asked the PM to cough up 4.5k for every report that is usually bullshit anyway (but good place to start off to make my own assumptions and forecasts for my models).

 
SV4lax:
Great post. Could you comment on how much the ER analysts/assoc. deals with the Institutional Traders, both sales-traders and sector guys? Is it just the morning meetings when they initiate a new view on the stock (buy, hold, sell) or do traders talk with them throughout the day when they initiate a different view

We talk to our traders through out the day, whether it is following up on what is moving our stock that day to going over read thrus from other companies and news items that might be breaking through out the day. As an associate, I'm not in touch with sales a lot but my analyst is in constant touch and gets feedback on his idea from sales on what clients thought.

 

Initiation reports are definitely important to the buy side guys. Not that we won't read the annuals and everything we can get our hands on, but going through an initiation report before or after reading your first K can usually help answer questions you would be asking yourself during the entire time you're reading other material. It does a good job of presenting what the business is, what the issues are with it, and what the catalysts to growth or decline are... try not to get swayed by the analyst opinion but teasing out all the basic stuff is really helpful before diving in and seeing what your first impression of the company ends up being. I definitely read these every time I start a new name.

I hate victims who respect their executioners
 

Good post. I moved from the buyside to the sellside (small firm, EM strategy) for work/life balance reasons a few years ago.

I'm in the office 40 hours a week (sometimes from home) and don't worry about being wrong particularly any more, which has led to me being right considerably more often and stressing than when I was running $50m positions in Apple.

I could earn considerably more on the buyside, but I'm quite happy writing whatever I like (I aim for 0 maintenance research, which you can do if you're a strategist) and meeting clients every week to chat about my ideas.

 
caseyng93:
40 hours a week is slow season or in general? that's really relaxing in finance.

In general but let me clarify, my boss is ALWAYS working, always thinking about ideas, things to do in te future, planning marketing trips, reviewing out drafts etc.. When I say 40 hours I mean 40 hours of actual work.. There is a lot of time in the day he does other stuff (take an hour nap with his 2 yr old at noon, go to the gym randomly, lunch meetings which I guess you can count work but I dont consider any in home/city lunche marketing to be "work"

Usually on the days he's not traveling, he is spending his time with his family and responding to his emails and getting back to people who called. We (the associates) are working on the draft of a note and when we are done he will go through for an edit. Unless earnings, he usually checks out after 8pm as well

 

Newfirstyear: FACT, allocating pay based on a direct drive system is against both CFA and the law in many countries. Most places have an indirect drive system where the salaries are pretty standard and bonuses are the only reason to get up in the morning, with bonuses being determined by how little they think they can give you in order to keep your revenue stream (indirectly).

 

OP; not related to ER, but I thought maybe you'd have some insight. What is the role of a credit research analyst (not credit risk)? Do you interact with anyone from this division? Please share any insight you may have, thanks!

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
 

Is there a lot of travel involved still in ER or did they have to cut back due to lower commissions. Being in NYC i never realized how much and ER might have to travel to lets say midwest or the south since there are large funds down there.

BTW blackhat did you read that KORS initial coverage report last year with the analyst comparing KORS valuation to LULU? I laughed when i saw the valuation comp but I got a lot of valuable info about the company.

 
ladubs111:
Is there a lot of travel involved still in ER or did they have to cut back due to lower commissions. Being in NYC i never realized how much and ER might have to travel to lets say midwest or the south since there are large funds down there.

BTW blackhat did you read that KORS initial coverage report last year with the analyst comparing KORS valuation to LULU? I laughed when i saw the valuation comp but I got a lot of valuable info about the company.

KORS is way over-valued right now, IMHO of course...

"Give me a fucking beer", Anonymous Genius
 

My senior analyst travels may be a third of the time (80-90 days a year)- marketing is half of it, company visits and field trips another half. A lot of international travel these days as clients care about emerging markets so need to go there to see the companies.

ladubs111:
Is there a lot of travel involved still in ER or did they have to cut back due to lower commissions. Being in NYC i never realized how much and ER might have to travel to lets say midwest or the south since there are large funds down there.

BTW blackhat did you read that KORS initial coverage report last year with the analyst comparing KORS valuation to LULU? I laughed when i saw the valuation comp but I got a lot of valuable info about the company.

 

Each wall street firm already has those, but they only work because the corporates have relationships with analysts. The only firm to successfully short circuit research is Goldman (MAYBE Morgan Stanley), but that's because its Goldman and they take corporate relationships incredibly seriously starting with Lloyd himself - very few other CEOs bother (Jamie Dimon is the only other guy who really gets it). At other firms bankers don't due relationship stuff too well delegating a lot of the day to day grind of relationship maintenance to research

whotookmybowtie:
Thank you for this thorough guide. I am just curious on your view on whether there will be more dedicated corporate access departments in the future and thus further shrinking the side of the ER pie?
 

Trading volume isn't the be all and end all of an Analyst’s comp. While you can’t make a direct line from IB revenue and ER comp it’s often pretty hard to bank a company that your ER doesn't cover (especially if you’re a boutique) and often the ER analyst has management access that allows IB access it wouldn't normally get. They can’t be linked for legal reasons but don’t for a second think they are overlooked. 4% commissions on equity raises on a stock you cover are a tide that lifts all boats.

The other thing to remember here is the initial poster is talking about TOP 10 in the sector analysts. There are a whole lot more than this in any given sector. You might get some guys that have a kick-ass associate working for them plus another associate grinding away that doesn't have to do a lot of heavy lifting themselves but you get a lot more who have a mediocre associate who doesn't pull their weight or an associate they have to share and the analyst still works 60+ hours a week. I’m one of those… Better than being an associate, but the job isn't all that different...

There are a lot of different types of analysts, some want to be able to buy what they preach. They go to the buyside eventually. Others like to be able to give their opinion and have people sit there and listen. They stay analysts. Most of the rest think they could run the company they cover better and go into a management function of some type, CFO, CEO (for juniors or start-ups) or corp dev/strategy. I fall into that. I don’t want to run a company but I do eventually want to be able to help guide one.

IB MD, Head of my group, ex award winning equity research analyst.
 
Mithras264:
Trading volume isn't the be all and end all of an Analyst’s comp. While you can’t make a direct line from IB revenue and ER comp it’s often pretty hard to bank a company that your ER doesn't cover (especially if you’re a boutique) and often the ER analyst has management access that allows IB access it wouldn't normally get. They can’t be linked for legal reasons but don’t for a second think they are overlooked. 4% commissions on equity raises on a stock you cover are a tide that lifts all boats.

The other thing to remember here is the initial poster is talking about TOP 10 in the sector analysts. There are a whole lot more than this in any given sector. You might get some guys that have a kick-ass associate working for them plus another associate grinding away that doesn't have to do a lot of heavy lifting themselves but you get a lot more who have a mediocre associate who doesn't pull their weight or an associate they have to share and the analyst still works 60+ hours a week. I’m one of those… Better than being an associate, but the job isn't all that different...

There are a lot of different types of analysts, some want to be able to buy what they preach. They go to the buyside eventually. Others like to be able to give their opinion and have people sit there and listen. They stay analysts. Most of the rest think they could run the company they cover better and go into a management function of some type, CFO, CEO (for juniors or start-ups) or corp dev/strategy. I fall into that. I don’t want to run a company but I do eventually want to be able to help guide one.

Great original post. This is great too, especially the first two points.

Under my tutelage, you will grow from boys to men. From men into gladiators. And from gladiators into SWANSONS.
 

What kind of internships would you suggest for a sophomore? Obviously going straight for an ER internship would be best, but what do you think would be second/third/fourth/etc. best to get one's foot in the door?

If your dreams don't scare you, then they are not big enough. "There are two types of people in this world: People who say they pee in the shower, and dirty fucking liars."-Louis C.K.
 

Very insightful piece - kudos! Just curious how can your analyst make over $1mn a year and not be ranked? I thought the comp on the street has come down quite a bit. Any sense what firm you are at - you can just include a list of the firms. What title does your analyst have, how long/he she has been in the industry?

IamObama:
I was motivated to make this thread after reading a lot of the other threads in this forum, about why certain top analysts are still on the sell-side. It appears that almost everyone who doesn't work on the buy-side or sell-side, or even a remotely close front office position fails to understand how equity research works, and what purpose it serves.

Let me start off by giving you some information on my background. I've been working in equity research at BB for close to 7 months now for a high ranked analyst in the consumer sector.

1) First of all, understand that content wise, 90% of sell-side equity research is crap, late, and just a way for the analyst to stay visible. I don't argue this fact, and I don't think anyone else does. But just because it is crap doesn't mean it is useless. Sell-side equity research content from the average analyst does one thing for buy-siders: it makes their life easier.

Sell-side teams (including mine) do a lot of the mundane analysis that buy-siders can't be bothered with, but nonetheless find valuable. As an example, buy-siders will often just use the sell-siders model as a template to work off of rather than create their own, thereby saving hours of work. So creating detailed, well structured models are adored by the buy-side, regardless of how meaningless the assumptions are.

The 10% of the sell-siders that are very good at their job, and are phenomenal analysts are the ones that buy-siders actually care for their opinion about. For example, one of our biggest competitors at another firm put out a very detailed, well thought, and original pitch for a company of ours to break up or go through a significant restructuring. This piece garnered a lot of attention for him, and every buy-sider interested in the stock cared about what this guy had to say.

So the conclusion to my first point is, even though most analysts suck, their work is still useful to the buy-side, and there are a few really good analysts that everyone listens to what their research has to say.

2) Corporate access: The biggest value add for the 90% of crappy analysts on the street, and the reason why they keep their job despite putting out crappy reports.

I work along side an analyst who is barely ranked in his sector, doesn't issue any reports besides the earnings review and occasional pieces, and not much of original content. But there is one thing that he does that he does good: corporate access. He covers 20 companies, and he has very good relationship with the management team of at least half of them. He is able to set up non-deal roadshows etc that clients love him for and he is a huge value add for them.

If you think an analyst can only be good by creating good reports, than you don't understand equity research. There are two ways for analysts to build their research franchise: 1) content or 2) marketing.

As I already mentioned, only a handful of analysts are good at the content part. The marketing part is where the strength for the rest of them is. Generally if they aren't good at one of these two, they won't be an analyst for very long.

3) Ability to move over to the buy-side...this is the topic that everyone outside of the industry thinks they know but have absolutely no idea. It was so painful for me to read the other thread that I was referring to earlier and have people say "well just go read what Einhorn and Ackman think about these guys". Let me give you a newsflash EINHORN AND ACKMAN ARE 0.0000000001% of the buy-side....THEY ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF HOW THE BUY-SIDE WORKS ON AVERAGE

With that said, MANY people from research move over from the sell-side to the buy-side. And they are preferred at the average fund over bankers because research guys have a much better understanding of how the markets work and what moves the stock than the bankers who covered the same sector and same companies.

I must note that the people who usually move over from research to buy-side are associates and not the analysts. And there are several reasons for this, but I'm going to first cover the associates.

Associates have 3 options when it comes to career progression: 1) become an analyst covering their own sector, 2) go to corp finance/investor relations/some other career, 3) go to the buy-side

Believe it or not, I would say most associates go the 2/3 route over the more obvious choice of becoming an analyst. I think the reasons for this are as follows: 1) they realize the skills that are necessary to be a top 10 analyst and don't feel they posses them, 2) they enjoy the pure analytical aspect of the industry and don't want to deal with the marketing or 3) some buy-sider approached them first and becoming a sell-side analyst is still a few years down the road. Some also just go into IR/corporate finance/other because they are just sick of the wall street lifestyle.

Analysts, on the other hand, are much less likely to go to the buy-side (imo). The reasons include a dramatic lifestyle change or they just aren't good stock pickers but are good marketers instead.

I think the reason the best analysts on the sell-side do not leave for the buy-side is the change in lifestyle. Buy-side life is a lot more stressful than being a successful sell-side analyst. My analyst works 30 hours a week, works from home mostly so he sees his family a lot, and when he travels, it is usually for marketing events where there is a lot of socializing and fun. And by doing all this, he easily clears over a million a year, more than enough to live a very comfortable life.

Now he could move over to the buy-side and get paid more, but he probably won't see his family as much, he will probably work more hours, from the office rather than home, he won't be able to sleep if he makes a bad bet on earnings, he will wake up in the middle of the night and check is BB for the Asian markets are doing.

Most top analysts do not want this, and this is why they choose to stay where they are.

4) The final topic I want to hit on his ER as an industry going forward. ER will always be around...and anyone who thinks that it is not is crazy. Aside from the content, ER is the liaison between investors and corporations...and there will always be the need for the liaison. Big institutional guys pay hundreds of millions of dollars each year just for the industry to perform its duty as a liaison, content aside. And that isn't going anywhere. You can talk about equity volumes all you want, you can believe ER is a cost center all you want (which is not true), but the industry is going no where. Will it shrink? I don't know..maybe, but it it will still be here because there is still a lot of money left for clients to spend to access the services ER offers.

 

How else would you get to know management and the companies? I came from industry as opposed to from bis school etc. so I may be biased but...

IB MD, Head of my group, ex award winning equity research analyst.
 
IamObama:

I was motivated to make this thread after reading a lot of the other threads in this forum, about why certain top analysts are still on the sell-side. It appears that almost everyone who doesn't work on the buy-side or sell-side, or even a remotely close front office position fails to understand how equity research works, and what purpose it serves.

Let me start off by giving you some information on my background. I've been working in equity research at BB for close to 7 months now for a high ranked analyst in the consumer sector.

1) First of all, understand that content wise, 90% of sell-side equity research is crap, late, and just a way for the analyst to stay visible. I don't argue this fact, and I don't think anyone else does. But just because it is crap doesn't mean it is useless. Sell-side equity research content from the average analyst does one thing for buy-siders: it makes their life easier.

Sell-side teams (including mine) do a lot of the mundane analysis that buy-siders can't be bothered with, but nonetheless find valuable. As an example, buy-siders will often just use the sell-siders model as a template to work off of rather than create their own, thereby saving hours of work. So creating detailed, well structured models are adored by the buy-side, regardless of how meaningless the assumptions are.

The 10% of the sell-siders that are very good at their job, and are phenomenal analysts are the ones that buy-siders actually care for their opinion about. For example, one of our biggest competitors at another firm put out a very detailed, well thought, and original pitch for a company of ours to break up or go through a significant restructuring. This piece garnered a lot of attention for him, and every buy-sider interested in the stock cared about what this guy had to say.

So the conclusion to my first point is, even though most analysts suck, their work is still useful to the buy-side, and there are a few really good analysts that everyone listens to what their research has to say.

2) Corporate access: The biggest value add for the 90% of crappy analysts on the street, and the reason why they keep their job despite putting out crappy reports.

I work along side an analyst who is barely ranked in his sector, doesn't issue any reports besides the earnings review and occasional pieces, and not much of original content. But there is one thing that he does that he does good: corporate access. He covers 20 companies, and he has very good relationship with the management team of at least half of them. He is able to set up non-deal roadshows etc that clients love him for and he is a huge value add for them.

If you think an analyst can only be good by creating good reports, than you don't understand equity research. There are two ways for analysts to build their research franchise: 1) content or 2) marketing.

As I already mentioned, only a handful of analysts are good at the content part. The marketing part is where the strength for the rest of them is. Generally if they aren't good at one of these two, they won't be an analyst for very long.

3) Ability to move over to the buy-side...this is the topic that everyone outside of the industry thinks they know but have absolutely no idea. It was so painful for me to read the other thread that I was referring to earlier and have people say "well just go read what Einhorn and Ackman think about these guys". Let me give you a newsflash EINHORN AND ACKMAN ARE 0.0000000001% of the buy-side....THEY ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF HOW THE BUY-SIDE WORKS ON AVERAGE

With that said, MANY people from research move over from the sell-side to the buy-side. And they are preferred at the average fund over bankers because research guys have a much better understanding of how the markets work and what moves the stock than the bankers who covered the same sector and same companies.

I must note that the people who usually move over from research to buy-side are associates and not the analysts. And there are several reasons for this, but I'm going to first cover the associates.

Associates have 3 options when it comes to career progression: 1) become an analyst covering their own sector, 2) go to corp finance/investor relations/some other career, 3) go to the buy-side

Believe it or not, I would say most associates go the 2/3 route over the more obvious choice of becoming an analyst. I think the reasons for this are as follows: 1) they realize the skills that are necessary to be a top 10 analyst and don't feel they posses them, 2) they enjoy the pure analytical aspect of the industry and don't want to deal with the marketing or 3) some buy-sider approached them first and becoming a sell-side analyst is still a few years down the road. Some also just go into IR/corporate finance/other because they are just sick of the wall street lifestyle.

Analysts, on the other hand, are much less likely to go to the buy-side (imo). The reasons include a dramatic lifestyle change or they just aren't good stock pickers but are good marketers instead.

I think the reason the best analysts on the sell-side do not leave for the buy-side is the change in lifestyle. Buy-side life is a lot more stressful than being a successful sell-side analyst. My analyst works 30 hours a week, works from home mostly so he sees his family a lot, and when he travels, it is usually for marketing events where there is a lot of socializing and fun. And by doing all this, he easily clears over a million a year, more than enough to live a very comfortable life.

Now he could move over to the buy-side and get paid more, but he probably won't see his family as much, he will probably work more hours, from the office rather than home, he won't be able to sleep if he makes a bad bet on earnings, he will wake up in the middle of the night and check is BB for the Asian markets are doing.

Most top analysts do not want this, and this is why they choose to stay where they are.

4) The final topic I want to hit on his ER as an industry going forward. ER will always be around...and anyone who thinks that it is not is crazy. Aside from the content, ER is the liaison between investors and corporations...and there will always be the need for the liaison. Big institutional guys pay hundreds of millions of dollars each year just for the industry to perform its duty as a liaison, content aside. And that isn't going anywhere. You can talk about equity volumes all you want, you can believe ER is a cost center all you want (which is not true), but the industry is going no where. Will it shrink? I don't know..maybe, but it it will still be here because there is still a lot of money left for clients to spend to access the services ER offers.

Well, sell-side ER seems to be in decline and there are more and more IR firms popping up to serve access to management etc. Do you really think the current model is sustainable given that 90% of all sell-side analysts' opinions are worthless? And if the value add is just doing the grunt work, blocking and tackling, why not just outsource it to India?

 
jonmorris:
IamObama:

I was motivated to make this thread after reading a lot of the other threads in this forum, about why certain top analysts are still on the sell-side. It appears that almost everyone who doesn't work on the buy-side or sell-side, or even a remotely close front office position fails to understand how equity research works, and what purpose it serves.

Let me start off by giving you some information on my background. I've been working in equity research at BB for close to 7 months now for a high ranked analyst in the consumer sector.

1) First of all, understand that content wise, 90% of sell-side equity research is crap, late, and just a way for the analyst to stay visible. I don't argue this fact, and I don't think anyone else does. But just because it is crap doesn't mean it is useless. Sell-side equity research content from the average analyst does one thing for buy-siders: it makes their life easier.

Sell-side teams (including mine) do a lot of the mundane analysis that buy-siders can't be bothered with, but nonetheless find valuable. As an example, buy-siders will often just use the sell-siders model as a template to work off of rather than create their own, thereby saving hours of work. So creating detailed, well structured models are adored by the buy-side, regardless of how meaningless the assumptions are.

The 10% of the sell-siders that are very good at their job, and are phenomenal analysts are the ones that buy-siders actually care for their opinion about. For example, one of our biggest competitors at another firm put out a very detailed, well thought, and original pitch for a company of ours to break up or go through a significant restructuring. This piece garnered a lot of attention for him, and every buy-sider interested in the stock cared about what this guy had to say.

So the conclusion to my first point is, even though most analysts suck, their work is still useful to the buy-side, and there are a few really good analysts that everyone listens to what their research has to say.

2) Corporate access: The biggest value add for the 90% of crappy analysts on the street, and the reason why they keep their job despite putting out crappy reports.

I work along side an analyst who is barely ranked in his sector, doesn't issue any reports besides the earnings review and occasional pieces, and not much of original content. But there is one thing that he does that he does good: corporate access. He covers 20 companies, and he has very good relationship with the management team of at least half of them. He is able to set up non-deal roadshows etc that clients love him for and he is a huge value add for them.

If you think an analyst can only be good by creating good reports, than you don't understand equity research. There are two ways for analysts to build their research franchise: 1) content or 2) marketing.

As I already mentioned, only a handful of analysts are good at the content part. The marketing part is where the strength for the rest of them is. Generally if they aren't good at one of these two, they won't be an analyst for very long.

3) Ability to move over to the buy-side...this is the topic that everyone outside of the industry thinks they know but have absolutely no idea. It was so painful for me to read the other thread that I was referring to earlier and have people say "well just go read what Einhorn and Ackman think about these guys". Let me give you a newsflash EINHORN AND ACKMAN ARE 0.0000000001% of the buy-side....THEY ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF HOW THE BUY-SIDE WORKS ON AVERAGE

With that said, MANY people from research move over from the sell-side to the buy-side. And they are preferred at the average fund over bankers because research guys have a much better understanding of how the markets work and what moves the stock than the bankers who covered the same sector and same companies.

I must note that the people who usually move over from research to buy-side are associates and not the analysts. And there are several reasons for this, but I'm going to first cover the associates.

Associates have 3 options when it comes to career progression: 1) become an analyst covering their own sector, 2) go to corp finance/investor relations/some other career, 3) go to the buy-side

Believe it or not, I would say most associates go the 2/3 route over the more obvious choice of becoming an analyst. I think the reasons for this are as follows: 1) they realize the skills that are necessary to be a top 10 analyst and don't feel they posses them, 2) they enjoy the pure analytical aspect of the industry and don't want to deal with the marketing or 3) some buy-sider approached them first and becoming a sell-side analyst is still a few years down the road. Some also just go into IR/corporate finance/other because they are just sick of the wall street lifestyle.

Analysts, on the other hand, are much less likely to go to the buy-side (imo). The reasons include a dramatic lifestyle change or they just aren't good stock pickers but are good marketers instead.

I think the reason the best analysts on the sell-side do not leave for the buy-side is the change in lifestyle. Buy-side life is a lot more stressful than being a successful sell-side analyst. My analyst works 30 hours a week, works from home mostly so he sees his family a lot, and when he travels, it is usually for marketing events where there is a lot of socializing and fun. And by doing all this, he easily clears over a million a year, more than enough to live a very comfortable life.

Now he could move over to the buy-side and get paid more, but he probably won't see his family as much, he will probably work more hours, from the office rather than home, he won't be able to sleep if he makes a bad bet on earnings, he will wake up in the middle of the night and check is BB for the Asian markets are doing.

Most top analysts do not want this, and this is why they choose to stay where they are.

4) The final topic I want to hit on his ER as an industry going forward. ER will always be around...and anyone who thinks that it is not is crazy. Aside from the content, ER is the liaison between investors and corporations...and there will always be the need for the liaison. Big institutional guys pay hundreds of millions of dollars each year just for the industry to perform its duty as a liaison, content aside. And that isn't going anywhere. You can talk about equity volumes all you want, you can believe ER is a cost center all you want (which is not true), but the industry is going no where. Will it shrink? I don't know..maybe, but it it will still be here because there is still a lot of money left for clients to spend to access the services ER offers.

Well, sell-side ER seems to be in decline and there are more and more IR firms popping up to serve access to management etc.
Do you really think the current model is sustainable given that 90% of all sell-side analysts' opinions are worthless?
And if the value add is just doing the grunt work, blocking and tackling, why not just outsource it to India?

If you serve no value to your sales force (and by extension the buy-side), you will not last long.

Analysts are in the unique position to pool sentiment/information from across the buy-side, from the company, and from the industry/market. That is extremely valuable for many buy-siders.

Finally, ER reports and price targets generally mean very little. They are a way to generate a conversation 90% of the time. An analyst's success is generally 100% correlated to his call volumes. The more you talk to the buy side, the more votes/trades you will get, and the more money your firm will make.

 
EfferCore:
jonmorris:
IamObama:

I was motivated to make this thread after reading a lot of the other threads in this forum, about why certain top analysts are still on the sell-side. It appears that almost everyone who doesn't work on the buy-side or sell-side, or even a remotely close front office position fails to understand how equity research works, and what purpose it serves.

Let me start off by giving you some information on my background. I've been working in equity research at BB for close to 7 months now for a high ranked analyst in the consumer sector.

1) First of all, understand that content wise, 90% of sell-side equity research is crap, late, and just a way for the analyst to stay visible. I don't argue this fact, and I don't think anyone else does. But just because it is crap doesn't mean it is useless. Sell-side equity research content from the average analyst does one thing for buy-siders: it makes their life easier.

Sell-side teams (including mine) do a lot of the mundane analysis that buy-siders can't be bothered with, but nonetheless find valuable. As an example, buy-siders will often just use the sell-siders model as a template to work off of rather than create their own, thereby saving hours of work. So creating detailed, well structured models are adored by the buy-side, regardless of how meaningless the assumptions are.

The 10% of the sell-siders that are very good at their job, and are phenomenal analysts are the ones that buy-siders actually care for their opinion about. For example, one of our biggest competitors at another firm put out a very detailed, well thought, and original pitch for a company of ours to break up or go through a significant restructuring. This piece garnered a lot of attention for him, and every buy-sider interested in the stock cared about what this guy had to say.

So the conclusion to my first point is, even though most analysts suck, their work is still useful to the buy-side, and there are a few really good analysts that everyone listens to what their research has to say.

2) Corporate access: The biggest value add for the 90% of crappy analysts on the street, and the reason why they keep their job despite putting out crappy reports.

I work along side an analyst who is barely ranked in his sector, doesn't issue any reports besides the earnings review and occasional pieces, and not much of original content. But there is one thing that he does that he does good: corporate access. He covers 20 companies, and he has very good relationship with the management team of at least half of them. He is able to set up non-deal roadshows etc that clients love him for and he is a huge value add for them.

If you think an analyst can only be good by creating good reports, than you don't understand equity research. There are two ways for analysts to build their research franchise: 1) content or 2) marketing.

As I already mentioned, only a handful of analysts are good at the content part. The marketing part is where the strength for the rest of them is. Generally if they aren't good at one of these two, they won't be an analyst for very long.

3) Ability to move over to the buy-side...this is the topic that everyone outside of the industry thinks they know but have absolutely no idea. It was so painful for me to read the other thread that I was referring to earlier and have people say "well just go read what Einhorn and Ackman think about these guys". Let me give you a newsflash EINHORN AND ACKMAN ARE 0.0000000001% of the buy-side....THEY ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF HOW THE BUY-SIDE WORKS ON AVERAGE

With that said, MANY people from research move over from the sell-side to the buy-side. And they are preferred at the average fund over bankers because research guys have a much better understanding of how the markets work and what moves the stock than the bankers who covered the same sector and same companies.

I must note that the people who usually move over from research to buy-side are associates and not the analysts. And there are several reasons for this, but I'm going to first cover the associates.

Associates have 3 options when it comes to career progression: 1) become an analyst covering their own sector, 2) go to corp finance/investor relations/some other career, 3) go to the buy-side

Believe it or not, I would say most associates go the 2/3 route over the more obvious choice of becoming an analyst. I think the reasons for this are as follows: 1) they realize the skills that are necessary to be a top 10 analyst and don't feel they posses them, 2) they enjoy the pure analytical aspect of the industry and don't want to deal with the marketing or 3) some buy-sider approached them first and becoming a sell-side analyst is still a few years down the road. Some also just go into IR/corporate finance/other because they are just sick of the wall street lifestyle.

Analysts, on the other hand, are much less likely to go to the buy-side (imo). The reasons include a dramatic lifestyle change or they just aren't good stock pickers but are good marketers instead.

I think the reason the best analysts on the sell-side do not leave for the buy-side is the change in lifestyle. Buy-side life is a lot more stressful than being a successful sell-side analyst. My analyst works 30 hours a week, works from home mostly so he sees his family a lot, and when he travels, it is usually for marketing events where there is a lot of socializing and fun. And by doing all this, he easily clears over a million a year, more than enough to live a very comfortable life.

Now he could move over to the buy-side and get paid more, but he probably won't see his family as much, he will probably work more hours, from the office rather than home, he won't be able to sleep if he makes a bad bet on earnings, he will wake up in the middle of the night and check is BB for the Asian markets are doing.

Most top analysts do not want this, and this is why they choose to stay where they are.

4) The final topic I want to hit on his ER as an industry going forward. ER will always be around...and anyone who thinks that it is not is crazy. Aside from the content, ER is the liaison between investors and corporations...and there will always be the need for the liaison. Big institutional guys pay hundreds of millions of dollars each year just for the industry to perform its duty as a liaison, content aside. And that isn't going anywhere. You can talk about equity volumes all you want, you can believe ER is a cost center all you want (which is not true), but the industry is going no where. Will it shrink? I don't know..maybe, but it it will still be here because there is still a lot of money left for clients to spend to access the services ER offers.

Well, sell-side ER seems to be in decline and there are more and more IR firms popping up to serve access to management etc.
Do you really think the current model is sustainable given that 90% of all sell-side analysts' opinions are worthless?
And if the value add is just doing the grunt work, blocking and tackling, why not just outsource it to India?

If you serve no value to your sales force (and by extension the buy-side), you will not last long.

Analysts are in the unique position to pool sentiment/information from across the buy-side, from the company, and from the industry/market. That is extremely valuable for many buy-siders.

Finally, ER reports and price targets generally mean very little. They are a way to generate a conversation 90% of the time. An analyst's success is generally 100% correlated to his call volumes. The more you talk to the buy side, the more votes/trades you will get, and the more money your firm will make.

I suppose I don't understand why, with all this intel the sell-side collects, their price targets and theses are so wrong? I mean 90%? Why doesn't all of the legwork show up in the analysis? Are reports just to appease company management teams in return for access?

 

OP- How much knowledge does a research associate/analyst have to have about journal entry/accounting things like accruals, reversals, book-to-physicals, etc? Do they need a solid working knowledge of the whole process, a bottom line understanding mostly to just integrate into models, or is it something that's practically never touched on?

 

equity research demands a strong knowledge of accounting and finance because a chunk of your time is dedicated to modeling (similar to IB). However, if you are a first year associate whos not totally confident on their accounting this isnt the end of the world because you will have training for the first few months anyway

 

Very insightful post, thank you.

Could you please explain one part which I didn't understand - you said "ER is the liaison between investors and corporations...and there will always be the need for the liaison. Big institutional guys pay hundreds of millions of dollars each year just for the industry to perform its duty as a liaison, content aside." Could you please explain what the liaison role is that ER performs and exactly how banks benefit from this? (My knowledge of ER is limited so this is probably obvious to most people here...). Thanks!

 

Great read. Made me realize what I want to do if/when I get into the Financial Industry workforce. I have been interested in ER for a while now, currently interning at an ER firm (Sell-Side) and am learning a lot. Doubt I want to be a Buy-Side guy, not because of the time commitments but because I doubt I will be able to handle the stress that comes with the job.

Question: I am currently working on the Cement manufacturing industry, is there a topic/discussion on here about how to go about analysing different industries/companies and how to value them and the criteria involved? @"IamObama" Any tips on the above question? As well as any tips on how to get into this industry for a career?

Background: I am an International Student from India, studying in a Non-target school. Currently interning in India.

Thank you in advance

If you fall down, make sure you get back up with a vengeance!
 

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Saepe aut nesciunt et aut. Dolorem sunt dolores quia id aut aspernatur consequatur. Excepturi voluptatibus vitae voluptatem non doloremque quia. Occaecati voluptas quod voluptas reprehenderit.

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Tempore unde inventore est eligendi. Officiis eos natus unde sit. Autem quo dignissimos sequi eos quia.

 

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