I hate Equity Research

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pimp

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Bored to death by it after 5 years. Where should I go next?
 
What’s your background? 5 years at same firm (were you at Lehman)? Do you have an MBA?
 
Sick of writing silly first call notes. No one reads that crap beyond the first page, yet I find myself writing a 12 page note each time. Waste of productive time.
 
Have CFA. Don’t need an MBA after 10 years of experience with same firm.
 
pimp Wrote:
——————————————————-
> Sick of writing silly first call notes. No one
> reads that crap beyond the first page, yet I find
> myself writing a 12 page note each time. Waste of
> productive time.
Yeah, once I went buyside (FI, not equity), I realized just how little content gets absorbed on research reports vs how much depth / time is put into creating it.
 
pimp Wrote:
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> Have CFA. Don’t need an MBA after 10 years of
> experience with same firm.
Wait, what?
Maybe you get an MBA so you can get some tanglible knowledge OUTSIDE of the ER role you’re in, since you hate it so much.
Unless you’re implying CFA>MBA.
 
pimp Wrote:
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> Have CFA. Don’t need an MBA after 10 years of
> experience with same firm.
I didn’t think you NEED the MBA from a traditional sense, just that if you’ve worked that long (and have some $$) and are really sure you want to change things up, taking the two years to do a full time MBA, travel on breaks, then use the opportunity to exit into a new field. Sounds fun to me.
 
I’m considering moving to an Investment Management company - like a Wellington or something.
 
Don’t get me wrong, I follow a hot sector and all, but the boredom of writing endless pointless firstcall notes is starting to get to me.
 
Why don’t you move to the Buyside ? Isn’t that the natural progression for someone who has been on the sell-side for so long . Or are you finding that it’s hard to make a switch after staying for such a long time on the sell-side ? I have heard that the longer you stay on the sell-side , the harder it is to move to the buyside.
 
in some ways it is harder to make the switch to buy side the longer one stays on the sell side, there is a bias on the buyside to working with ‘moldable’talent, the perception is that the longer that one works sell-side, the more rigid and static a person’s investment process is making that person less attractive to buyside firms
that said, sell side equity research is a good place to work for 2-3 years before making the jump, the original poster’s 5 years may be a turn off for some organizations based on what I’ve seen in the past
in any case, making the jump to buyside is extremely competitive even for former sell siders, so good luck original poster
 
I am surprised more people didn’t see this earlier. I say about 90% of the reports I read are nonsense and just filler.
I always think to myself when reading most of this stuff, “this guy gets paid nicely but this job must suck having to put together this stuff”.
but you have wonderful exit opps. cheer up.
 
res420 Wrote:
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> Why don’t you move to the Buyside ? Isn’t that the
> natural progression for someone who has been on
> the sell-side for so long.
If this were true, wouldn’t they buy side be full of old people and the sell side full of young people?
 
I would love to be in ER but the thought of Sell Side ER for more than 3 years makes me sick to my stomach. I can see why you would be extremely bored pimp. Jump to the buyside, it’s so easy a caveman could do it!
 
ohai Wrote:
——————————————————-
> res420 Wrote:
> ————————————————–
> —–
> > Why don’t you move to the Buyside ? Isn’t that
> the
> > natural progression for someone who has been on
> > the sell-side for so long.
>
> If this were true, wouldn’t they buy side be full
> of old people and the sell side full of young
> people?
this is true, there are generally more older people on the buy side than the sell side, the average age definitely creeps up
 
12 pages everytime? Most I’ve read have been 8 pages or so and the last 5 pages are usually models and disclosure. Unless you work at DB, they write wayyyyyy too much.
 
My best buddy who’s a buy side guy for a top firm calls all sell side consensus research crap.
“Garbage in, Garbage out.”
Yes, your job is pointless, as is your life. But at least you’re getting paid a half a million bucks.
 
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