Wall Street research analysts in many ways are still struggling to regain their stature. Portfolio magazine doesn't do them any favors by calling into question whether such research, especially when applied to banking, has any value at all. The fall guys here are Meredith Whitney, a star analyst at Oppenheimer, and William Tanona of Goldman Sachs. There has been a lot of analyst activity recently, and people are right to take it all with a grain of salt. Whitney notes in the report that she has very little confidence in her estimates. The fact is that investment banks have always been hard to predict; one reason for their traditionally low multiple. And these are unusual times.  

For more:
- here's the Portfolio article