Research

Our Research

Research is a team effort. Even when a solitary name appears on a research report, rest experience. The reason: we are, and want to be accountable for what we say. Even when fundamental & quantitative readings are somewhat at variance, knowledge of this provides the input required to time your move. And even if you count yourself among the 'investors' and not 'traders', timing your move can make a substantial difference to your profit & loss account. This is again where first global adds tremendous value to its long-only clients. And we try to produce all the thought and analysis in as readable and entertaining a form as we can. In short, we generate research that is painstakingly hand-crafted, with passion. Not something that rolls off an assembly line.

As an investor or a trader (read all about our cutting-edge quantitative techniques and philosophy in quantitative research), you are faced with the unenviable task of wading through piles of information - and truckloads of mass-produced, look-alike, sound-alike, consensus-hugging research that more often than not has hidden (or not-so-hidden) agendas. Our aim is not to deluge you with paper but to provide useful insights, analysis and money-making ideas. We concentrate on trend shifts, not-so-obvious aspects and pointing out issues where seemingly none exist as for us, you can rest assured that what we say is untainted by corporate finance considerations or the need to drive trading volumes. All that we require from clientsis that they be fair in their commission allocation decisions. If we add more value than others, we deserve to get paid more. If some other firm adds more value, then pay that firm the most. Commission payments should be transparent and sell-side firms should know the basis for these allocations. Our holistic view of the markets goes beyond the fundamental/investing vs. Quantitative/trading debate. It means making sure that our view of the world hangs together. There is no greater example of this than our research on the technology/software stocks, where our view on individual stocks has been shaped by what we think would happen in each broad segment of the information technology industry and what would be the winning strategies ineach; and the industry view in turn is shaped by an understanding of the macroeconomic structure including long-term capital expenditure & capacity utilization trends across a wide spectrum of industries a multi-factor, multi-period quantitative trading system that aims to be anti-consensus, anti-correlation, in its approach.

This hybrid analysis often gives amazing results - some stocks and sectors end up on the perfect list - high fundamental value and high quantitative value. That's the sweet spot of the market - and if you get even 50% of these right, you'll be next seen on a beach in hawaii.