Investment bank research: Who is pulling the strings?

After 15 years spent working as a Wall Street analyst, “the tremendous conflict of interest” Joyce Albers felt between her responsibility to investors and the demands of her firm’s investment banking clients finally convinced her to leave. Although Albers was a top-rated analyst at CS First Boston, covering pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, she claims much of her time was spent following a handful of companies that were the firm’s banking clients, not those who she thought offered exciting investment opportunities.