Large Brokerage Research Articles

Patterns in Investment Research

J NVESTMENT RESEARCH, one of the youngest professions with academic and scientific background, has gone quite a way in the brief span of the last quarter century. Its theories and techniques, hammered out in the fierce crossfires of cyclical ups and downs, have justified themselves sufficiently and have given the profession a standing of indispensability. Today large research departments are maintained by banks, insurance companies, investment banking firms, portfolio counselors, investment trusts, large brokerage houses. Some of these organizations are known to apply to investment research sums in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, and these people can truly say that, if the answer can be gotten at all, their time and money are in to get it. A great deal in the theoretical structure and in the methodological approach of investment research moves in a zone of flux that can have considerable latitude. In fact, the character of the tool and of the material with which it operates, as well as the nature of its objectives, does require a definite flexibility and responsive adaptability to the changing impulses of the innumerable cyclical and secular variables. Of course, aging will make it more seasoned and less experimental. Schools of thought in investment research vary more than those in ordinary, less speculative, technical and scientific pursuits. Although variances may not be fundamental, investment research activity among the various organizations that foster such work may show considerable individuality, particularly in the emphasis of one or the other of the various determinants that enter in investment problems.