Wall Street securities analysts have seen their images tarnished and their reputations maligned because of perceived conflicts of interests and lack of objectivity in their stock recommendations.
The failings of a few analysts have cast a pall of suspicion over the entire industry. But not all analysts are shills for the investment banking world; and to help you tell the difference, the BNY Jaywalk research platform is available to show just how analysts' buy and sell calls have performed.
Jaywalk is an independent research consolidation service of the Bank of New York. In combination with Investars Inc., New York, BNY Jaywalk now offers analyst performance statistics, comparisons and aggregate information for individual stocks.
Investars tracks the historical recommendations issued by investment banks and measures performance by hypothetically investing or withdrawing funds each time a recommendation is issued; the firm will provide data performance analysis for 20 independent research firms on the Jaywalk platform. That number will increase to 50 by the end of this year, according to John D. Meserve, president of BNY Jaywalk.
The collaboration will enable institutional subscribers to compare independent research analysts with sell-side analysts from investment banks to see who has the best track record and how the recommendations stack up against one another.
"There has been a lot of interest in this," said Mr. Meserve. "Sell-side analysts have never been measured on performance. ... It's a new paradigm they are going to have to learn to live with."