Wall Street has a lot of explaining to do.
Over the past couple of years, the securities business has come in for a storm of criticism for the poor quality of its research. Investment houses have been assailed with congressional inquiries, private lawsuits and media scorn. The main evidence of Wall Street's mindless cheerleading: analysts who persisted in slapping buy recommendations on just about everything, even as the markets were tanking. The backlash continued last month when New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer alleged that Merrill Lynch & Co. analysts promoted to retail customers the stocks of investment banking clients, while deriding the same companies in internal e-mails. Now the Securities and Exchange Commission is "requesting" information on firms' research practices.
Wall Street has been trying to battle back. Last month Merrill chairman and CEO David Komansky publicly apologized and took charge of negotiating a settlement with Spitzer. Goldman, Sachs & Co. reorganized its operation so that its head of research would report directly to the CEO. HSBC Securities declared last fall that henceforth for every buy recommendation it issued, it would make at least one sell call. And the Securities Industry Association has promulgated voluntary "best practices" standards designed for all research groups.
但对于所有这些活动,有一件事没有changed. Based on an examination conducted by Institutional Investor , using data provided by First Call/Thomson Financial of analyst recommendations at 169 brokerage firms , Wall Street remains, astonishingly, as bullish as ever. Sell recommendations on Wall Street are as rare as a seven-figure bonus. In March 2000, at the peak of the market, the average brokerage house mix of stock ratings was 73 percent buy, 27 percent hold and less than 1 percent sell. After a year of market decline, the breakdown in April 2001 was 69 percent buy, 30 percent hold and 1 percent sell. Today, after all the recriminations and supposed reforms, that distribution has barely changed: On average, 62 percent of recommendations are rated buy, 35 percent hold and 3 percent sell (see table below).
“大华尔街公司对客观独立研究不感兴趣，”Vista Research联合创始人杰克HIDARY表示，这是一个新的精品店，为订阅提供了研究机构的研究。“他们覆盖了你的股票，因为你是银行客户，或者因为他们希望你成为银行客户。”
华尔街的拜占庭评级系统可以抵抗容易的分析。要履行这项研究，首次呼吁巩固有时令人沮丧地微妙地评分为一个统一的五个评级组：强大的购买，购买，中性，卖出和强大的卖出。亚博赞助欧冠机构投资者然后进一步将评级改为三：购买，保持和销售。“证券分析师揭开了模糊他们正在制定的真正建议，以保持他们的信息来源及其新业务，”哈佛商学院投资银行业的最佳荣誉教授和国会审查委员会的成员去年建议改革华尔街研究。
To be sure, there are some exceptions, notably at Morgan Stanley. Last year the firm's analysts had 64 percent buys to 36 percent holds , and not a single sell recommendation. Today, after a major revamping of its ratings system, Morgan Stanley's distribution is 33 percent buy, 45 percent hold and , hold your breath , 22 percent sell.
Why is Wall Street still clinging to its positive bias? For starters, investment banks don't want to anger companies who pay high margin fees for banking business. Pressure from institutional investors on analysts gets less publicity, but it plays a role in keeping down sells as well. "I have definitely had institutional investors call me telling me to fire an analyst who put a sell recommendation on a stock they owned," says Sallie Krawcheck, chairman and CEO of Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. "But I never had an investor call me and tell me to fire an analyst who put a buy rating on a stock they didn't own."
分析师认为，他们积极弯曲的一个原因是他们选择好，不错，股票来覆盖的简单事实。并且，他们注意到，此时在市场周期中，股票比秋天更容易上升。“当分析师决定涵盖股票时，雷曼兄弟全球股权研究总监Joseph Amato说，这是对客户来说的商业模式的自然偏见。”
Whatever the reason, there will soon be nowhere to hide. The National Association of Securities Dealers and the New York Stock Exchange have proposed new rules that will require every brokerage firm to boil down the distribution of its recommendations into simple, if hypothetical, "buy, hold, sell" percentages. In research reports banks will be forced to graph the price of each stock and indicate at what point their analyst changed the rating or price target. And firms will also be required to disclose any corporate finance business they've performed for the company , or anticipate doing (see box, page 30).
这些新规定是否会改变华尔街的penchant for boosterism remains to be seen. But some research officers believe they may finally push the sell side to change. "Analysts will feel a little bit more pressure to be a bit more accurate on their recommendations," says Alfred Jackson, global head of securities research at Credit Suisse First Boston. "I think you'll see people willing to change their ratings more quickly."
但销售仍然是华尔街很少听到的一个词。根据II和第一次呼叫的分析，只有三家公司只有超过5％的股票，他们占据了卖。除了摩根士丹利外，它们还是新成立了研究精品支点全球合作伙伴和审慎证券。Fulcrum没有投资银行;2001年普努力剥夺了这一业务。摩根斯坦利最近彻底改进了它的四分层评级系统（两类购买），以三层，超重，市场重量和体重减轻，其中每股股票都是针对其他股票的衡量分析师涵盖，而不是违背广泛的市场基准，例如标准差和穷人的500指数。
调查结果包含一些惊喜。采取伯尔尼斯坦，以其自身的独立性，因为它没有投资银行。它只有1％的股票销售。亚博赞助欧冠机构投资者认为伯恩斯坦，通过长期措施，成为华尔街最诚信的研究所（2001年12月的机构投资者）。“通常，我们已经有大约10％的销售，”伯尔尼斯坦研究总监丽莎熊队解释说。“今年我们已经升级了大量升级，我们认为基于我们在这个周期的位置来说是有道理的。”实际上，去年伯尔尼斯坦的6％的呼吁卖出，是任何公司的最高。
六家公司至少有两倍的购买，因为他们所做的两倍，而且几乎没有卖：熊，斯特纳斯＆Co.，Cibc世界市场，花旗集团/萨洛蒙史密斯巴尼，高盛萨克斯，雷曼兄弟和SG Cowen。
华尔街必须为自己说什么？甚至没有研究董事甚至没有试图证明所有街道的评分规范，但他们指出了减轻问题的一些细微差别。例如，他们注意到评级并非一切。“我们销售研究，而不是建议，”伯恩斯坦Krawcheck表示，这是联盟资本管理的一部分。
少数有很多卖出的公司认为他们是对独立的肯定。通过要求分析师比较他们互相覆盖的公司而且不仅仅是广泛的市场，摩根士丹利已派出飙升。在比较相同的分析师涵盖的同行组比较时，可能被视为更具吸引力或中立的股票可能较少。
"We think we've come up with a significant improvement on the ratings system," says Dennis Shea, Morgan Stanley's director of global equity research. "And we're encouraged by the way all of our clients , both corporates and institutional investors , have reacted."
其他公司是否会跟随摩根士丹利的领先优势？有些人已经积极考虑变化，其他人则肯定会遵循。但不要指望任何主要的投资银行就支配。独立的研究小组于2001年5月开始，问题只能购买和销售。“对我来说是一个散兵坑，你可以在你下定决心的时候跳进和隐藏，”公司的创始人迈克·佩特克里说。“从根本上讲，除非你只是专注于明天或下周将发生的事情，除非有两种方式可以走两种方式。而且你应该有一种方式或另一方有意见。”
明确意见的一个重要评论家是纽约州律师斯皮茨。上个月，挥舞着一个80岁的法律，他拯救了美林林奇，通过“危害市场诚信”的利益冲突致电经纪公司的研究“污染”。Spitzer从国家最高法院获得了法院命令，要求Merrill在每个研究报告中披露，是否有或期望拥有与被覆盖公司的投资银行关系。Spitzer已经在其他华尔街公司提供了Subpoenas，并表示他正在考虑将民事和刑事欺诈的指控归咎于Merrill。Spitzer指出，自1999年底，公司的互联网集团尚未发出单一的减少推荐，从不介意卖。在那个时候，互联网部门沉没了64％。
具有讽刺意味的是，在Spitzer的攻击Merrill之前试图清理其研究系统。2001年6月，该公司为其评分增加了强烈的购买，淘汰了积累，综合减少并销售成一个类别。其他公司，包括Deutsche Bank，Jefferies＆Co.和谨慎的变化。许多人遵守西亚的自愿指南：分析师没有向投资银行报告;他们清楚地透露了他们覆盖的股票的个人控股;他们更频繁地应用销售等级;在他们降级股票之前，他们不会出售自己的持有人。
While research departments grumble, at least one person is hopeful, particularly since the SEC is expected to soon approve the NASD's mandatory research disclosure regulations.
“我对纳斯德提案非常鼓舞，”研究查尔斯山的第一次致电主任，一直忙于努力购买和销售。“我想我们会变得更加”说出你的意思和意味着你所说的“来自华尔街。”
失败的战斗
Chastened Wall Street官员表示，他们支持国会和联邦监管机构的努力，恢复股权研究的诚信，并通过延期，股票市场本身。但许多人也曾在国家证券经销商和纽约证券交易所建议的改革中的一些不太公开的规定上。
华尔街公司有几个问题的建议，这些提案与研究公司的投入敲响，但在立法者和证券交易委员会的强烈压力下。一个主要的粘性点是要求公司在研究中披露的要求，他们是否在过去一年中收到了公司客户的赔偿，或者他们是否期望在未来三个月内。投资银行作为一个原则，始终稳定于客户关系的细节。但有些人特别关注新的规则将不公平地将市场提示到待偿付器和收购。
“如果我们刚刚拍摄了一个新客户，那么任务是一个敌对的收购出价，我们突然发布了关于载有这一新披露的公司的研究报告，我们预计我们希望从中获得投资银行赔偿未来，没有那个信号到我们的分析师，其他分析师，投资者，有些东西起来了吗？“摩根斯坦利的资本市场律师John Faulkner在上个月由证券行业协会赞助的新规则会议期间。亚博篮球怎么下串“人们将抓住。”
Another bone of contention: Firms must disclose ownership stakes of 1 percent or larger in any of the companies they research. For financial conglomerates with brokerage, asset management, merchant banking and other securities operations throughout the world, determining whether they exceed the disclosure threshold will require building new systems, which could take a year or longer.
Then there is the issue of what exactly constitutes a research report under the proposed rules. Some firms worry that research notes, updates and summary publications that supplement in-depth reports on individual stocks and sectors will be rendered unusable by reams of additional disclosure. Credit Suisse First Boston, for instance, says its "Monthly Review & Comment," which took up 253 pages in April, would weigh in at an indigestible 1,500 pages. Its nine-page daily "Morning Highlights" would grow to 63.
But the most worrisome of the proposals' provisions is the one calling for compliance officials to mediate and document virtually all communication between research analysts and investment bankers. Research officials complain that even with an army of such intermediaries, there is no way to monitor every phone call, e-mail or whisper in the elevator. Furthermore, they argue, this kind of chaperonage will discourage even innocent, beneficial contact between bankers and analysts.
“分析师与银行家的每次对话都不是关于如何搞砸零售投资者的邪恶对话，”一家大公司研究头说。分析师经常使用他们对公司或部门的深度来增加建议，投资银行家可能会对资本市场交易或合并提供管理。
额外的印刷和律师在华尔街上导致了一些人在华尔街上掠过，以提出“律师和伐木工人和2002年全面就业法案”的建议。
引领使新规则更少征税的费用是SIA。本集团上个月就拟议规则提交了一封冗长的评论函，必须在生效之前由SEC批准。在此建议中：从披露要求中排除重新包装或总结，早期的研究;仅限于披露赔偿过去投资银行费用;并将1％的所有权阈值提高到5％。
But significant changes aren't likely. Regulators fear that in their attempt to accommodate even legitimate concerns, they might also create loopholes through which firms could creatively violate the spirit of the rules.
“我们将仔细考虑所有评论信，”纽约上个月在纽约上个月的SIA会议期间，玛丽沙拉队主任玛丽沙拉队的观众。“但你需要在华盛顿和该国，对这些新规则将投入业界的负担并没有任何同情。”
更直言不讳地，由于其最近的表现，华尔街已被禁止有益于疑问。，J.A.，J.S.
