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Meredith Whitney to start her own firm

You've got to strike while the iron is hot. For Meredith Whitney, who used the financial crisis to storm her way to stardom has announced she will step down at Oppenheimer and start her own firm. Reuters says the name of the firm will bear her name. One fair question is what kind of firm will it be? I can't see her as a hedge fund manager, but who knows? A small fund that targets financial services companies may not be a horrible idea right now.

More than likely, the new firm will be some sort of independent research outfit. If so, she faces a long haul. While her opinions are respected, it's unclear how much the buyside will be willing to pay for it. She has a lot of decisions to make in terms of commissions agreements and soft dollars and such. She may need a treading arrangement. This will certainly be interesting. 

For more:
- here's the Reuters article

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Comments

Is there really a market for a middling stock analyst? Given the state of Wall Street, I find it more likely "starting her own firm" is a variation on the code words of "leaving to pursue new opportunities."

To quote from a Fortune article by Jon Birger last summer, Whitney seems more fluff than substance.

"Whitney's insights haven't always translated into lucrative investment picks. Based on the performance of her buy and sell recommendations relative to her industry peer group - what analyst tracker Starmine refers to as an analyst's "industry excess return" - Whitney's stock picking ranked 1,205th out of 1,919 equity analysts last year and 919th out of 1,917 through the first half of 2008."

I weary from all the spinning coming from DC and Wall Street. Nothing is ever as it is initially presented. Spin, spin, spin!

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