Never before has Wall Street's corps of research analysts been so highly prized or honored. As underscored by this month's edition, in which we unveil our All-America Research Team of 2000, we have certainly done our share to recognize and celebrate their achievements.
By Michael Carroll, Editor
October 2000
Institutional Investor Magazine
Research analysts once toiled in obscurity. Now they promote their work widely - in everything from written reports to Webcasts to stand-ups on television. But this newfound fame and fortune carries with it an increasingly high price, as Wall Street's researchers become lightning rods for market performance. Already the targets of sharp criticism from company managements and institutional investors, some analysts, as Staff Writer Justin Schack points out in "The Mounting Price of Fame," (page 42), have even received death threats from irate retail investors. And, as Senior Editor Carolyn Sargent notes in her introduction to this year's All-America team, disaffection among institutional investors is growing steadily.
Overall, investors worry that the quality of research has slipped because of all the work analysts must do for their firm's investment banking clients. Others fret that the Securities and Exchange Commission's new Regulation FD (for fair disclosure) will further crimp analysts' value by limiting their access to senior management at companies.
"We were, frankly, surprised by the depth of negative feelings the buy side has toward Wall Street's analysts," says Sargent. "They still think very highly of many analysts on an individual basis but long for more creative, thought-provoking work."
Investors are certainly eager to reward the best analysts. They voted in record numbers to select winners for the 2000 All-America Research Team. This year, under the direction of Art Director Irene Ledwith, we departed from our traditional caricatures to photograph the 79 winners in 82 categories. Photo Editor Anastasia Pleasant enlisted photographer Marc Bryan-Brown, and over the course of a week and a half, first-teamers were shot in a studio on Manhattan's West Side. Some, like building & building products wiz Ivy Zelman, on maternity leave in Cleveland, couldn't make the shoot, so Pleasant arranged to have photographers shoot them under conditions identical to those at the studio.
Ledwith, Pleasant and Deputy Art Director Patrizia Bove combed through more than 3,000 images, selecting the best photos for our cover and inside spreads. Bove designed the inside four-page gatefold - a highlight of our celebration of the best research analysts working on Wall Street.
