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This may sound snarky, but it's not meant to be. When I've worked in large corporations I was astounded by the amount of... shall we say "irregular" stock acti

This may sound snarky, but it's not meant to be. When I've worked in large corporations I was astounded by the amount of... shall we say "irregular" stock activity. For a while I've been struck with the thought that you could probably make a pretty good living simply buying long stock the day before executive stock options are issued and then selling them again when executives are selling theirs (either through planned trades or when blackouts are lifted). Interestingly (for me, anyway) the very large places I've worked at often let the peons listen to the analysts meetings over the phone system. Again, I was shocked by the complete lack of knowledge that analysts at big investment houses have in the companies they were analysing. They would be completely unaware of large acquisitions, law suits and any number of things that even the casual observer would know about. I really got the impression that their job was literally to attend the meeting and report the company's projections. The company's could get away with murder because nobody was paying attention to what they were doing. Not sure if things have tightened up since that time in my life. I haven't worked for a big company since the early 2000's, but somehow I get the impression that there are probably plenty of ways to ride on the coattails of less than scrupulous executive compensation.

Frqy3 10y ago
I have an engineering background and worked with a major telco for several years before moving to work as a financial analyst for a while. Few of the other analysts had an industry background in the companies they covered. Mostly they had an accounting/commerce/economics background. They were good at pulling together financial models from the data and information provided to them in briefings, but they largely missed the implications that even someone with a year or two of industry experience would understand. I am reminded of the story of Max Planck and the chauffeur and the two types of knowledge [0]. [0] https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2015/09/two-types-of-knowledge/ https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2015/09/two-types-of-knowle...
uiri 10y ago
Was this before or after the large Enron scandal? One would hope that things have been tightened up since then and tightened even further on the aftermath of the late 00s financial meltdown but maybe they haven't been.

Frqy3 10y ago

I have an engineering background and worked with a major telco for several years before moving to work as a financial analyst for a while. Few of the other analysts had an industry background in the companies they covered. Mostly they had an accounting/commerce/economics background. They were good at pulling together financial models from the data and information provided to them in briefings, but they largely missed the implications that even someone with a year or two of industry experience would understand. I am reminded of the story of Max Planck and the chauffeur and the two types of knowledge [0]. [0] https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2015/09/two-types-of-knowledge/ https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2015/09/two-types-of-knowle...

uiri 10y ago

Was this before or after the large Enron scandal? One would hope that things have been tightened up since then and tightened even further on the aftermath of the late 00s financial meltdown but maybe they haven't been.