In many market segments, we are living in a golden era on Wall Street, but one area that has failed to shine is equity research. Let's face it, telling people at happy hour that you're a stock analyst doesn't draw quite the reaction it did a few years ago. Yet somehow, despite all the tumult from investigations and Reg FD, the more things change, the more they stay the same. In 2007, I do not expect any magic on the part of equity research units. There are a lot of changes afoot, but the basic trends established this year do not look like they will change significantly. Despite Fidelity's big moves, most of the buyside is not pushing to disaggregate, but they will continue to beef up in-house capabilities. Sellside research shops will remain under pressure; their product will likely get even more vanilla. Independents will remain a lowly regarded niche. So it strikes me that the ground is fertile for some truly entrepreneurial thinking. If you can come up with something out of the box, people will have to take note.