This means real donkey work, digging out notes, making comparisons, finding the tunnels, and in general, unpainting the carefully painted picture. But most analysts do have to answer their own phones, sell stocks, attend meetings and still cover all the developments in their areas. So, there are not many who can do their job. — Adam Smith, The Money Game. The suspicion is that most analysts simply parrot and extrapolate what the company has been saying and doing. Instead of original thinking, they attend conference calls, perform site visits and make their predictions based on what the companies tell them. Sometimes the companies fool them. But there’s not much that can be done about that. Something else analysts are prone to: a pernicious herd mentality. Analysts are notoriously bad about thinking for themselves. Or perhaps they do think for themselves, and then sit on their hands and just agree with whoever’s willing to take the publicity. — Anon Often there is nothing to say, but...
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