They have 6 figure educations from Ivy League Institutions. They are the brightest individuals on Wall Street with huge corner offices in buildings like the World Trade Center. Their firms spend millions of dollars supporting their research.
Investors support their firm s budgets by paying commissions and fees for access to their advice.
In the mornings on their firm s squawk boxes these analysts give their recommendations to the firm s brokers who then pound the phones to dole this advice out to their clients. With all the money and effort that goes into their 50 page analyst reports, you would think the results of their work would be beneficial to the investor. Fleet Boston Financial, a unit of Robertson Stephens was the worst, showing a net loss of 36 percent. We have all heard about the problems in the analyst community. Their compensation packages are based on the underwriting fees of their firm, not on the performance of their recommendations.