Why Wall Street Can't Handle the Truth

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Wall Street Journal:

^{THE SATURDAY ESSAY
NOVEMBER 5, 2011}
Why Wall Street Can't Handle the Truth
Longtime bank analyst Mike Mayo tells the inside story of why it's so hard to yell 'sell' in a crowded room—and lays out how Wall Street needs to change to avoid the next financial collapse.

By MIKE MAYO

Over the past 12 years, longtime banking analyst Mike Mayo has issued numerous calls to sell bank stocks, a rarity in a system where nearly all stocks are rated buy or hold. His negative ratings have frequently gotten him in trouble with banks, clients and his own bosses, who didn't want to alienate those companies. In this excerpt from his new book, "Exile on Wall Street," Mr. Mayo gives an inside view of the fights, the scolding and the threatening phone calls he received as a result of yelling "sell"—and offers a proposal to fix the banking sector.

Taking a negative position doesn't win you many friends in the banking sector. I've worked as a bank analyst for the past 20 years, where my job is to study publicly traded financial firms and decide which ones would make the best investments. This research goes out to institutional investors: mutual fund companies, university endowments, public-employee retirement funds, hedge funds, and other organizations with large amounts of money. But for about the past decade, especially the past five years or so, most big banks haven't been good investments. In fact, they've been terrible investments, down 50%, 60%, 70% or more.


WSJ's Francesco Guerrera stops by Mean Street to preview a book that claims on Wall Street, it's every bank for itself. Clients, it turns out, are very far down on the list of priorities. AP Photo/Mary Altaffer

Analysts are supposed to be a check on the financial system—people who can wade through a company's financials and tell investors what's really going on. There are about 5,000 so-called sell-side analysts, about 5% of whom track the financial sector, serving as watchdogs over U.S. companies with combined market value of more than $15 trillion.


John Loomis for The Wall Street Journal
Mike Mayo told the Senate Banking Committee in 2002 that financial analysts "are on the front lines of holding corporations accountable." However, he says, they haven't always upheld this trust with investors.

Unfortunately, some are little more than cheerleaders—afraid of rocking the boat at their firms, afraid of alienating the companies they cover and drawing the wrath of their superiors. The proportion of sell ratings on Wall Street remains under 5%, even today, despite the fact that any first-year MBA student can tell you that 95% of the stocks cannot be winners.

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H/T Instapundit

 

 

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