Forward Guidance

what does a financial analyst do? well this and this and this.

so after all that analyzing of financial data what does the analyst actually do?

well she makes recommendations to you know do stuff. generally so that [man frowns at camera]

investors can make money or not lose money. and to be clear financial analysts

come in a few different flavors. pick an analyst who works for a stock brokerage

for example. well they produce reports which the brokerage then gives to

clients hoping that it will incentivize its clients to trade with the firm and

give the firm its business, which of course generates commission for the

stock brokers in theory. the goal here is to make money for the client. but the

more near-term goal is to you know get the client to pay attention to the firm.

this is a subtle but very important difference from a financial analyst who [one man stands behind another and shouts]

works for an investment company ie one who actually invests money for clients

and is evaluated based on the performance of those investments. a

financial analyst inside of an investment company like fidelity or

Franklin or American Funds cares only about how well the investment does. the

financial analyst does not have to juggle clients or worry about marketing

to non-professional investors or generating commissions for the firm. all

they have to worry about is beating the market or their index or whatever

benchmarks are set out there for them .in addition there are two flavors of [woman hits punching bag]

financial analysts on Wall Street more or less .by side -those are extensions of

hedge funds and private equity funds and venture capital funds and mutual funds-

they're all the people who analyze things from the perspective of a buyer

only like they buy the stuff they don't have to keep clients happy and get

Commission business. then you have the sell side which are largely just [graph showing stocks]

extensions of stockbrokers. stockbrokers hire the analyst to give smart opinions

on buying selling and holding stocks such that well they can go talk to their

clients about it and win Commission business from getting them to trade

through them by recommending Microsoft at forty two dollars and twelve cents

and stuff like that. there are financial analysts who work for the government as

well. these guys are usually housed in hell-like divisions of the government

called the Fed which assesses whether or not the [man in dark glasses behind computer]

economy is heating up cooling down or see-sawing like a spring day in Chicago.

well here a financial analyst might be sampling the prices of a half gallon

carton of GMO milk at 500 grocery stores around the country. they then use that

data to figure out if the country is feeling inflation deflation or just

boredom .financial analysts exist inside of corporations as well.

corporate analysts perform market evaluations to try to help companies [man smiles at camera]

sell more product for more profit which in turn fuels the company's growth and

all that other fun stuff. so yes being a financial analyst might not be the

flashiest job in the world but just think about all that Ben and Jerry's you

can buy once your commission comes through. [people cheer the ice cream truck]