I am keen to get a discussion going in relation to the good, bad and the ugly of investment research, broker notes and the like.
Clearly, there are the "Big Boys", i.e. the I-Banks (Goldman, UBS, CSFB, Merrills/BofA, Deutsche Bank, etc) . My impression is that they tend to keep their research under wraps and, unless you're an institutional client, it's difficult to get hold of. That seems particularly the case for Goldman, but also the others. I tend therefore to hear about this research second-hand, via the press, rather than read it first hand. Is that everyone else's experience or am I talking out of my hat?
Below this, there are the more boutique research houses. Here, my impression is that the research tends to be more available for private investors, and also tends to be more specialist in the coverage, e.g Fox Davies (http://www.fox-davies.com) who focus on the natural resource sector.
At a level below this, I suspect there may be a lot of research coming out of India - certainly, they are tackling the market research sector pretty hard so I assume that they must also be producing investment research although I don't yet know the players...
So, I guess the questions that we might want to cover are:
- In general, what investment research sources does everyone find a) useful and b) accessible?
- Which research houses are best for which sectors?
- Have you found particular houses to be particuarly amenable to adding you to their distribution list?
- What makes good investment research and when is it just self-serving hogwash?
