We've moved We have moved Trading Desk to a new home with better features and a new design! You can visit it directly, or subscribe to the RSS or Atom feeds You can also visit our brand new home pages, www.nationalpost.com and www.financialpost.com New blog address: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/tradingdesk/default.aspx RSS: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/tradingdesk/rss.aspx ATOM: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/tradingdesk/atom.aspx

Visit Trading Desk

Merrill Lynch changes the research game

Posted on May 15, 2008

Merrill Lynch s new system for equity ratings that forces its analysts to have the equivalent of a sell recommendation on 20% of the stocks they cover appears to be the firm s attempt at repairing flaws in Wall Street s rating system.When it launches on June 2, 2008, Merrill analysts may be more willing to say negative things about companies they cover because they have the excuse that they are required to have a minimum number of underperform ratings. And executives they need access to may be sympathetic to this.The rules also require that the proportion of buy-rated stocks does not exc...

Original article link


underperform