Quality of Research

Michael Lewis (Liar's Poker) on Wall St.
Long piece but the quote below gives insight to street "insight"

I'd been looking for copy of comments by John Gutreund on how work on the street isn't that noble - not serious like medicine or teaching. Fun, but not serious ...

The End of Wall Street's Boom - Portfolio.com:

"He was hired as a junior equity analyst, a helpmate who didn’t actually offer his opinions. That changed in December 1991, less than a year into his new job, when a subprime mortgage lender called Ames Financial went public and no one at Oppenheimer particularly cared to express an opinion about it. One of Oppenheimer’s investment bankers stomped around the research department looking for anyone who knew anything about the mortgage business. Recalls Eisman: “I’m a junior analyst and just trying to figure out which end is up, but I told him that as a lawyer I’d worked on a deal for the Money Store.” He was promptly appointed the lead analyst for Ames Financial. “What I didn’t tell him was that my job had been to proofread the documents and that I hadn’t understood a word of the fucking things.”"

The above bit was about Steve Eisman, who coached Meredith Whitney, who in turn called out Citi as a failing model (read the whole thing... it's gory)

And this is why I try to invest in real companies that do real things, provide real services or better yet, make real goods, that real people want and need.