Using data from Investars, research firms with strong performance for buy and sell recommendations over the three years ending December 31, 2011 were B. Riley & Co., MKM Partners and Market Profile Theorems (MPT). Also of note was the performance of Haugen Custom Financial Systems, Inc. Investars, a New York-based performance measurement and commission management ...
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report last week recommending potential improvements to regulation safeguarding analyst independence. The GAO concluded that current regulation is effective, but that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) needs to review those aspects of the Global Research Analyst Settlement (GRAS) which have not been codified into regulation and ...
New York – GMI ESG Research & Ratings, an independent provider of global corporate governance data and research, launched this week the first of a series of “Say on Pay” reports. The report looks at the first year of GMI’s Executive Pay Scorecards, which assessed the quality of compensation policy and practices at 456 different ...
New York – Research based on satellite imagery, is one interesting alternative to traditional forms of investment research. DigitalGlobe, is one of the players in the space currently providing investors with unique data and analysis based on satellite images. One of DigitalGlobe’s projects targeted at investors involves analyzing satellite images of parking lot traffic at ...
New York – A study conducted by Imprima, a provider of financial communications services based in the UK, indicates that stakeholders believe that the small cap investment market in London requires a “radical restructure to encourage recovery.” Imprima implemented a survey among small cap companies, advisers and investors. The results revealed two main drawbacks in ...
The research firm with top performing buy recommendations over the three years ending September 30, 2011 was Benchmark Company LLC, followed closely by Market Profile Theorems, according to data collected by Investars. We analyzed the performance of stock recommendations made from October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2011, as tabulated by Investars, a performance measurement ...
New York – GMI, an independent provider of global corporate governance, ESG and accounting risk ratings and research, has launched “The Risk List”, a report that highlights the companies with the lowest score in GMI’s ratings. GMI has given these companies an “F” score after an in-depth analysis of various ESG and accounting factors. GMI ...
New York – Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., a global financial services firm, entered an agreement with S&P Capital IQ, a source of data, research and analytics, to provide global equity research products and services to Cantor’s US institutional clients. Cantor Fitzgerald will enhance its primary equity research offering by marketing and distributing co-branded S&P Capital ...
New York – In a path well known to SinoForest – a Chinese timber company accused of fraud, Chaoda Modern Agriculture – a Chinese agriculture firm, has been accused of engaging in one of the largest and longest running frauds in the Hong Kong Exchange. Judging from SinoForest’s experience, Chaoda’s stock faces interesting times. But ...
New York, NY – While this should come as no surprise to anyone who watches the financial markets, the recent sell-off in the U.S. equity markets has done nothing to change sell-side analysts’ unwillingness to provide a sell rating on stocks. In fact, today none of the stocks in the S&P 500 have consensus “sell” ...
New York – With events such as Steve Jobs stepping down as Apple’s CEO and GOOGLE buying Motorola Mobility, a careful eye on technology stocks seems prudent. A number of independent research providers in the technology space can be of interest to investors at this moment. Today we highlight Technology Insights Research, which has ...
New York – Last Sunday, the New York Times analyzed the outlook split between two groups in Wall Street: analysts who cover individual stocks and economists / strategists. “Typically bullish in the best of times, this group [analysts] has barely budged on its expectations for earnings in the second half of 2011, even as the ...
A recent article on a job recruiting website outlines a day in the life of an equity associate, detailing salary expectations as well as a description of an associate’s role. First, the compensation. Starting salaries for associates with undergraduate degrees are around $65-70,000 with bonuses of $25-45,000. For analysts, base pay is $125– $150,000 with ...
New York- This week the news reported that “corporate insiders are selling their companies’ shares at an abnormally fast pace”. Some independent research on this irregular activity can be precious. Last week, The Vickers Weekly Insider Report, a publication by independent research provider Argus Research, indicated that corporate insider selling activity at NYSE and AMEX-listed ...
New York – A few weeks ago, an article in The Economist titled Too Much of a Good Thing expressed concern about exchange-traded funds or ETFs. Independent research on ETFs might be the answer. “… [T]he headlong expansion of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which by May this year controlled almost $1.5 trillion of assets (not far ...
New York, NY – Last week, the Security and Exchange Commission settled charges with Philadelphia-based investment bank, Janney Montgomery Scott, for failing to establish and enforce policies preventing the potential misuse of material nonpublic information. The SEC’s Charges The commission charged that between January 2005 and July 2009, Janney “failed to adequately establish, maintain and ...
New York, NY – A few weeks ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission finalized rules requiring registration of most hedge fund managers with either their state or the SEC. The good news for most hedge funds is that the SEC “kicked the can down the road” by delaying the deadline for registration from July 21st ...
Who profits more from non-public information – U.S. Senators or hedge funds? Academic studies suggest that the stock portfolios of U.S. Senators significantly outperform most hedge funds, providing positive abnormal returns of 85 basis points per month over extended periods. Pension funds would do better to invest with Senators than with most asset managers. Two ...
New York – According to an article on CFO.com, the Securities and Exchange commission plans to look into conflicts of interest at proxy advisory firms: The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to issue a proposal this fall that will address the role of proxy-advisory firms, SEC chairman Mary Schapiro said on Tuesday. “When we catch ...
In the latest installment of the Insider Trading Show, Winifred Jiau, an expert affiliated with Primary Global Research (PGR), was convicted on counts of securities fraud and conspiracy to pass along confidential information. Of the fourteen indictments associated with PGR, eleven people have been found guilty so far. Newspaper reports indicate that the prosecutors’ success ...
Citic Securities, China’s largest investment bank, recently announced that it plans to acquire 19.9 percent of Credit Agricole SA (ACA)’s brokerage units, CLSA and Credit Agricole Cheuvreux, for $374 million: Citic and the investment-banking unit of Credit Agricole, France’s third-largest lender by market value, plan to create a brokerage partnership and may seek to cooperate ...
New York, NY – Culminating a two-year investigation by the Massachusetts Securities Division, last week Goldman Sachs agreed to pay a $10 mln fine and end the practice of conducting “trading huddles” between the firm’s analysts and traders to generate short-term trading ideas which were shared only with the firm’s best clients. Background on the ...
New York – Investment Technology Group (ITG) has announced that it has acquired Ross Smith Energy Group (RSEG), for $38.5 million in cash. Ross Smith, which currently has 200 clients, is expected to add 60 new equity asset management clients to ITG’s existing client base. According to the statement, Ross Smith’s revenues last year were ...
Miami – Datamyne recently announced its latest product release, featuring a friendlier user interface and expanded user options that make it easy to run complex searches and analyses of its import-export data. Datamyne provides the world’s largest searchable trade database, a top source of information on cargos, markets and trading partners in the US, Latin ...
New York, NY – According to the Wall Street Journal, Iowa Senator Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has recently started an investigation into potential insider trading by Stamford CT based hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors LP. This marks the first time since billionaire hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam was convicted ...
According to MarketWatch, the independent short idea research firm Behind the Numbers is launchig its own hedge fun later this year: Behind the Numbers, an independent research firm known for warning investors about potential problems at public companies, plans to launch a hedge fund in July. To be called “The Short Fund,” the hedge fund ...
New York, NY – Last week Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam was found guilty on all 14 counts against him for insider trading. Immediately, many journalists concluded that this outcome could have a serious negative impact on the expert network industry. While we disagree, we don’t think that hedge funds, expert networks, or other independent research ...
New York – While much of the focus on the research industry currently centers on concerns about receiving or transmitting material non-public information to investors, there are classes of information that are from public sources, but that have relevance to the investment process. One area that is not yet fully explored is management quality. Management ...
New York – Raj Rajaratnam, the co-founder of Galleon Group LLC, was found guilty of 14 counts today: A jury of eight women and four men in Manhattan returned its verdict today after hearing evidence that Rajaratnam, 53, engaged in a seven-year conspiracy to trade on inside information from corporate executives, bankers, consultants, traders and ...
New York – Gerson Lehrman Group Inc. (GLG), the leading expert network provider, has quietly launched a new rebranding strategy. GLG has reformed itself into two new brands: GLG Research, which encompasses its current expert network offerings, and G+, a new Twitter-style social networking site. The new branding appeared stealthily without any press releases (at ...
New York – With an $11-billion initial public offering in the works, there’s intense interest in, but limited new disclosures from the resolutely low-profile Glencore AG. We recently came across some interesting notes from Datamyne, a trade data provider covered by Integrity, that uses trade statistics to shed some light on the activities of Glencore ...
New York – Primary research services have taken a hit in recent months, as a result of the concerns of buy-side institutions about the stigma that could be created by using services that might be able to uncover insider information. On the other hand, there continues to be an obligation on the part of buy-side ...
New York – Today, we’d like to highlight a research firm that has recently come to our attention: Risk Control Strategies (RCS) provides investigative services to the alternative investment community. RCS is a consulting and investigations firm specializing in threat management, risk assessments and providing security solutions for corporations and the high net worth community. As ...
New York – The current definitions of insider trading owe much to a U.S. Supreme Court decision which capped a battle between Raymond L. Dirks and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The story is interesting not only for what it tells us about inside information, but also about the vagaries of being a research analyst. ...
NYC, NY – Last week the FBI arrested Matthew Kluger, a former attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati; and Garrett Bauer, a stock trader in an alleged insider trading scheme which spanned more than 17 years, involved 11 trades, and netted the participants more than $32.0 million in illicit profits. This latest case is just ...
New York – Recently, Integrity Research Associates interviewed five independent research analysts about the outlook for the global oil market. We asked them to share their views on a wide range of issues, including the cause of the recent rise in oil prices, the impact of political unrest in the Arab world, and the availability ...
New York – Yesterday, Robert Khuzami, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement addressed the SIFMA Compliance and Legal Society Annual Seminar. Some of his remarks are excerpted below, especially where they touch on the SEC’s recent enforcement actions and where they spell out future enforcement priorities. Speech by SEC Staff: Remarks at SIFMA’s Compliance ...
New York – When is inside information not illegal? When U.S. lawmakers or their staff trade on nonpublic regulatory or legislative information. Two House Democrats introduced legislation last week to create insider-trading rules for legislators and executive-branch employees. The bill also would require greater oversight of the growing “political intelligence” industry, the Washington analogue to ...
New York – As proxy season approaches, the New York Times is reporting on the most recent salvo in the activist investor – corporate war. The law firm Wachtell Lipton Rosen and Katz has asked the SEC to amend takeover rules to limit activist investors’ ability to rapidly and secretly acquire significant holdings of shares ...
New York – A recent ‘how-to’ book by a sell side equity analyst provides insights on what makes a good analyst. First on author James Valentine’s list is to ‘identify and monitor the critical factors most likely to influence a stock.’ The recent insider trading investigation highlights some of the risks associated with this task. ...
Ned Davis Research, Inc. has developed new models to generate its approximately 1,400 individual stock ratings, formerly known as the Individual Stock Perspective ratings. The new NDR Equity Rating (Buy, Sell, Neutral) is based on a quantitative relative ranking system, as opposed to the previous model which was based on an absolute rating. Given the ...
New York – This week, Maven Research announced the launch of a custom electronic survey product to compliment their primary telephone consultation offering. The aim of this product is to leverage Maven’s existing pool of experts by allowing clients to reach a larger population of experts and receive multiple responses to specific questions. Some of ...
New York, NY – Over the past few months, as US Federal Authorities have continued one of the largest insider trading investigations in history, many institutional investors have become increasingly afraid of using expert network firms to conduct investment research. Since the start of this investigation, many on the buy-side have tried to get clarity ...
New York, NY – Last week, Big Lots, a Columbus, Ohio-based discount retailer agreed to drop its lawsuit of independent channel checker, Retail Intelligence Group (RIG). The final settlement won’t involve any monetary compensation, and neither party admitted wrongdoing in the action. While it is clear that the settlement was welcomed for both RIG and ...
New York – The SEC recently released an order relating to three AXA Rosenberg entities that has interesting implications for quantitative researchers: The SEC’s order instituting administrative proceedings against the firms found that senior management at BRRC and ARG learned in June 2009 of a material error in the model’s code that disabled one of ...
New York – Bloomberg Businessweek reports today that Ticonderoga Securities LLC, the New York-based broker-dealer started in 2009, has reached a preliminary agreement to buy independent research firm Soleil Securities Corp. The takeover talks have not been announced publicly, but a definitive agreement may be signed in the next few days, according to Businessweek. Ticonderoga ...
New York – John Del Vecchio, a forensic researcher with previous stints at CFRA and Behind the Numbers, recently launched a novel new investment vehicle, a short-only actively managed ETF, the Advisor Shares Active Bear ETF (HDGE). Del Vecchio’s initiative illustrates opportunities and challenges that research firms face in creating investment product derived from their ...
New York – On January 31st, the Managed Funds Association (MFA), a hedge fund lobbying group, asked the Securities and Exchange Commission for guidance on using “expert networks,” a business that has been under scrutiny after a series of arrests linked to an investigation of insider trading. Expert network firms connect investors with individuals that ...
New York, NY – Last week Bank of America Corp. agreed to settle accusations by the Securities and Exchange Commission that Merrill Lynch’s proprietary trading desk illegally traded based on direct knowledge of what the firm’s institutional customers were doing. While SEC enforcement cases targeting this type of activity are rare, this settlement is likely ...
New York – Throughout this year we have seen a number of brokers expand their research offerings to entice more trade volume or enhance the vote. Among the success stories in adding research has been the progress made by Weeden & Co. Of course, Weeden has been accumulating research over a long period of time, ...
The following is a guest article by Stanley (Bud) Morten, C.F.A., who was appointed by the regulators to be an independent consultant overseeing Citigroup’s spending on independent research under the S.E.C.’s Global Research Analyst Settlement (2003-2009). The following is an excerpt from a presentation during a panel discussion on the impact of regulation on competitiveness. ...
New York – Research 2.0, a research firm that focuses on emerging technologies, recently announced some interesting changes to the way they would be distributing research. Some of the highlights of these changes are excerpted below: The R2 blog will become our primary publishing and client management platform: In the past the blog was a ...
As a whole the conference is designed to help the alternative research providers to determine their potential exposure to any new practices instituted at money managers, review and discuss the likelihood of the new rules and regulations, coordinate a message to regulators from the Investorside independent research community, and to provide guidance as to the things that the research providers can do to limit the economic damage from the current regulatory environment.
New York, NY – Yesterday, Bob Nguyen, a former semiconductor vertical analyst at Mountain View, California-based expert network provider, Primary Global Research, plead guilty to conspiracy and fraud in Manhattan federal court in the latest case brought as a part of the ongoing investigation into insider trading. Transparent Testimony Nguyen told Judge Debra Freeman that ...
New York – To say that asset managers are nervous about the insider trading cases is an understatement. It has become clear that money managers are on high-alert in regard to the potential for inside information to be shared in the investment research process. Firms that have any contact with company management are being viewed ...
New York, NY – Although many in the U.S. financial markets were on vacation last week, U.S. prosecutors continued to toil in its ongoing investigation into alleged insider trading. On Wednesday, December 29, 2010 California technology industry executive, Winifred Jiau, was arrested on charges of leaking secrets about chipmakers Marvell Technology Group Ltd and Nvidia ...
New York – Two interesting stories about trading strategies based on sentiment analysis. First, via Bloomberg, a new hedge fund that will use Twitter to predict moves in the stock market: Derwent Capital Markets, a family- owned hedge fund, will offer investors the chance to use Twitter Inc. posts to gauge the mood of the ...
New York – 2010 was an eventful year for the research industry. In the face of tight budgetary constraints, the SEC decided to send subpoenas instead of Holiday Greeting cards. This was apparently also the case at the Department of Justice. In addition to the regulatory mudslide, there was a spate of mergers & acquisitions ...
New York, NY – In recent weeks a few asset managers have decided that, given the ongoing insider trading investigation, it might make more sense if they stopped using independent research providers like expert networks, channel check providers, or other unregistered research firms. Instead, they have decided to rely on research from registered broker-dealers, based ...
New York, NY – A few weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article revealing that federal authorities were preparing one of the largest insider trading investigations in history that was likely to ensnare numerous analysts, investment bankers, experts, mutual fund and hedge fund traders. Since then numerous subpoenas and one arrest have followed, ...
Research Industry Highlights articles presented above are provided for informational purposes only, and do not constitute advice or guidance, nor is it an endorsement or recommendation for a particular research provider. Articles are provided by Integrity Research Associates, LLC, and independent company not affiliated with Fidelity Investments.
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