What 2014 outlooks do you guys follow? I am sure the big banks put out their research reports, and I have been taking a look at some of them, but wondering if there are any other key reports to find. Also, is there an easy place to look to see them all aggregated?
Given the nature of my job I have to keep up on all the outlooks from the wirehouses, big banks, and broker-dealers. BoA/Merrill’s is very popular. My personal favorite is Citi’s monthly outlook. IMO, they do the best job of describing the current economic and market environment. I don’t really pay attention to who is most accurate in terms of positioning moving forward. I think that’s too tricky to do consistently.
I don’t read any of these regularly, but I do sometimes wonder if they are designed to get the market moving in one direction or another to the benefit of the wirehouse, e.g., pumpy stuff to drive the price up after the prop desk buys or to create liquidity for a short positions so the desk can cover. I don’t know if that happens with macro research but it definitely 100% does happen with equity research and investment banking conflicts.
I try to stick to smaller newsletters/research providers with a good macro track record and fewer conflicts of interest. These strategists/analysts are also more likely to provide follow-up information in case opinions or markets change. The bigger fish tend to adopt a viewpoint and stick to it/defend it until the end. I also like to follow people who actually trade their own money and not just pontificators with no skin in the game.
Haven’t found an aggregated source with several outlooks but I haven’t really looked either.
I think it’s a little different with the wires and other large BDs. Instead of pumping their book, they’re pumping stocks to drive more business for their advisors. For example, LPL is saying we’re about half way through this bull market so their still plenty of time to buy. They’re just mollifying advisors that are worried their clients are buying at the top. Then again, to be fair, they’ve been right so far.
Then it’s the same thing, sort of. With pumpy research shops, it’s all about “OMGWTFBBQLOL?!?! Look at the growth!!!” But what they actually are doing is trying to raise the price of the stock before an equity issuance, which the pumpors of course want to underwrite (don’t worry though, everything’s separated by a Chinese wall). This sounds like conspiracy theory stuff but it’s pretty common and not even remotely opaque when it’s happening, although I guess some people still fall for it.
^ My Homie [edited by admin].
My bad.