Forced to fit in

In the US, the attention being paid to investment banks’ equity analysts is of a similar intensity to that last seen in the late 1990s. However the difference now is that the analysts are being demonised rather than idolised. David Watts investigates whether there will be ramifications for banks’ provision of corporate bond research

Wall Street banks have an air of defensiveness about them nowadays; the arrogance created by rocketing share prices in the late 1990s is gone. Back then banks wanted their star analysts to be up in front of the television cameras pontificating about the potential for the new economy. Today the banks will do practically anything to keep analysts out of the public eye.

The change is not surprising; not only has the bubble in the price of technology companies’ shares burst but Elliot Spitzer, New