Is the Work of Financial Analysts Worth the Cost and the Effort?

Abstract

As Francis Bacon put it: ‘If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts. But if he will be content to begin in doubts, he will end in certainties.’ No better dictum describes the work of financial analysis and the usefulness of this work. The contribution of the efforts by financial analysts is documented by their ability to go down to basics in examining which factors influence, and by how much, observable economic and financial phenomena as well as: