Research question: “How much flexibility or creativity is allowed with in the equity Research position?” “Is there a set format that someone in equity Research must follow in order to publish an advisory trading post?” “What research is allowed to be done by a Research analyst?”
I am really interested in the position of and Equity Research analyst as this is a potential career option, I could see myself going into some day. Essentially, an equity research analyst takes a deep look into companies and then posts in depth reports about whether a company should invest in them. I really want to know what type of information can be shared within the industry. Things such as can this person visit a company in person or can this person view any reports from the company. Then I would be curious about how they put together the report to make it as productive as possible. What sort of trends do they look at when putting something like this together? Is prospectus relative to the sector the individual company is in or is it more about how the company will do relative to the entire market (ex S&P 500). I would also like to know specifically what multiples they look at when analyzing a stock or at a very least which multiples have the most weight over how they value the stock.
After reading Brandt’s article, I was very intrigued about how I could use writing in the field of finance. Financial reports have a huge role in the way investors behave so clearly the way which these reports are written is important. I would need to interview an equity research analyst to answer these research questions. I would like to analyze at least one if not more of these equity research reports and on top of this, I would like to also observe a company and make some observations myself about how certain aspects would be viewed from an equity researchers viewpoint.
Some questions I would ask are:
“What does the day to in the life of an equity research analyst look like?”
“What portion of your time is spent the field doing shadows of companies and what portion is spent at the office doing research?”
“How much time do you spend analyzing an individual investment and what is the writing time for a report?”
“What are the most important parts of a report that you must include?”
“Which things do you first look at pick a company to analyze?”
I would like to conduct an informational interview with you that I will record for class. In this project we are talking about careers that analyzed writing for a living and I have chosen the equity research position to study. Because of I would like to ask you a few questions about your career as an analyst and how you go about writing your drafts.
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