杰弗里•斯普拉格(Jeffrey Sprague)选择了一个糟糕的时机加入卖方:“那是在1987年10月的崩盘之后——绝对不是当分析师的好时机，尤其是刚毕业的时候，”他表示。斯普拉格毕业于阿克伦大学(University of Akron)，获得金融学学士学位。他解释说:“为了获得学位，我必须参加投资课程，这是我真正的使命所在。”“从那以后，我就迷上了投资。”投资者已经被他迷住了。斯普拉格得到了一份与潘恩韦伯的工作，并在1994年作为亚军在全美研究团队首次亮相。在接下来的10年里，他一共出现了18次排名，其中包括11次排名第一。2002年(当时他为花旗集团/所罗门美邦工作)，他在两个行业中排名第一，电气设备和多行业;第二年，这两家公司合并了。现年50岁的斯普拉格在他的职业生涯中有过几次获胜的机会，其中有两次尤为突出。 In 2002, on the day that scandal-ridden and financially shaky Tyco International tapped Edward Breen to be its new CEO, the analyst upgraded the stock to buy. “Our work on the balance sheet and economics of its ADT Security Services division highlighted the underlying value, and the stock quadrupled over the next two years,” he says. More recently, in April 2007, Sprague published a report explaining why he thought General Electric Co. should divest itself of noncore operations such as consumer finance and real estate. “Evidence is mounting that GE is too big and complex to manage effectively,” he wrote. His advice fell on deaf ears. “They didn’t do it and experienced a severe earnings decline and liquidity crisis in the 2008–’09 downturn as a result,” he says. Sprague left Citi last year to help start a boutique. Growing frustrated with the poor management and conflicts at the big firms, but still having a passion for research, he launched Vertical Research Partners with Nicole Parent, a former global industrial sector head at Credit Suisse. The Stamford, Connecticut–based firm employs 18 analysts covering six sectors.
斯普拉格将自己的成功归功于自律和对工作的热情。他表示:“分析师很容易迷失在杂草中。”“防止这种情况的方法是深入挖掘并获取细节，然后退后一步，看看这些细节造成了什么样的大局。”否则，你只是在追逐某样东西，谁也不知道它会引向何方。”
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