Tuesday, 31 May 2016

The Emperor wears no clothes

Good article from Bloomberg:

"Every Stock Was a Buy to This Analyst Team, Then Shares Tanked"

Some snippets:


Companies probably love getting attention from analysts at Emperor Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong. Investors who followed their advice for the past year, not so much.

The unit of Emperor Capital Group Ltd. issued buy recommendations on every one of the 173 companies it reported covering from April 2015 through May 16. Its target prices, which the company says forecast trading levels within weeks, predicted gains of 25 percent on average. They are frequently the most bullish among analysts who cover the same stocks and list their calls with Bloomberg, including those based on the standard 12-month horizon.

The picks ended up being so wrong during the past year’s rout of Chinese and Hong Kong stocks that shorting every one would have resulted in gains of about 6 percent after just four weeks and almost 13 percent if all were held through last week.


I wrote before about "SFC reprimands and fines Moody’s over Red Flags Report". An overall good report, but with a negative bias and a small error led to Moody's being punished despite many good calls.

However, if one just makes sure that all recommendations are bullish, then no punishment will be meted out, even if the contents are rubbish.

The difference in treatment of writers of positive and negative reports is very worrisome.

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