Comments on: Book Review: Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst

By: Lily

Lily — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:41:29 +0000

Reingold's a slacker if he only worked 60-80 hour weeks. If you liked this book, consider reading Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker or I-forget-the-author(s)'s Monkey Business. Nothing makes you distrust Wall Street firms more than reading books by people who work(ed) there. (I have a slightly different perspective, I suppose, since I do work there. But I still don't take Wall Street research too seriously.)

By: Chief Family Officer

Chief Family Officer — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 04:58:11 +0000

Thanks for the review. This book has been on my “library list” (for when I eventually have time to borrow books from the library) but now I’m going to take it off. I don’t need a history of Wall Street!

By: Early Retirement Extreme

Early Retirement Extreme — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 01:26:42 +0000

I read the book a couple of years ago and I think it’s an interesting perspective on how it is to be an analyst on Wall Street. I don’t think it is an implicit recommendation of index funds. Index funds try to track the aggregate of the behavior of a lot of investors (think big institutions like pension funds) that react to upgrades and downgrades from analysts or whether reported earnings surprised analyst expectations. This, along with fed announcements, essentially change the composition of the index whether you want to or not. As for spending 60-80 hours a week, it depends on whether you want to be sure about what happens next quarter at all times for a lot of companies. If instead you spend your time picking fundamentally good companies and wait several years for the market to realize that they have been wrong, you don’t have to go with the “I don’t know what to go with, so I’m just going to buy a little bit of everything and bet on the average”.

By: Kyle @ Rather-Be-Shopping.com

Kyle @ Rather-Be-Shopping.com — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:57:34 +0000

60-80 hours a week on 1 segment?? Yikes, say goodbye to your life. I agree with you, I will stick to index funds.

Good Review!

By: mrsmicah

mrsmicah — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:12:26 +0000

I think his clients are basically saying: Here, I’ll pay you to spend lots of time analyzing stocks for us. (More like they pay the company, who then pays them.)

So it’s only fair that he tells them his findings first.

Now obviously he can sway the opinion when he releases his findings. But the point of his findings is first and foremost to serve the people who paid him to be their researcher.

What investors don’t take into account is that the first reaction to the news has already happened…so the stock’s situation might be different now.

By: Andrew Stevens

Andrew Stevens — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:04:10 +0000

An analyst is not an insider. The fact that people listen to what he says doesn’t make him one.

By: Money Blue Book

Money Blue Book — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:41:25 +0000

I have not found a book worth buying in a long time and prefer to just borrow or rent….

But speaking about the part where the analyst will alert his own clients before making the formal announcement to the public – that concerns me greatly since these analysts have the ability to sway public opinion. Pseudo-inside trading on the part of his personal clients in my opinion