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Comment by studentrob | Hacker News Reader

Do analysts ever share their data models publicly? It'd be interesting to see the data and be able to play with numbers along with these kinds of reports.

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If you are looking for how these models are created, you can look at the work of well-regarded experts in the valuation field like Damodoran, whose techniques many at i-banks or consulting firms would learn at some point in their careers. This link is to Damodoran's post for LinkedIn and GoPro (with downloadable, completed Excel models, which can be used as templates for other valuations):

http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2016/02/lazarus-rising-o...

Yes, sell-side (i.e. brokers like Goldman, Morgan Stanley, etc.) analysts do share their models with clients. They do this both in 'hardcopy,' pasted into published research reports, as well as 'softcopy,' sending or publishing the Excel file. Not exactly mainstream distribution, but 'public' in the eyes of the SEC and something you can find if you look for it.

You'll never see any of their data models or data

Really? I find it very surprising that investors would follow such guidance without being able to see the numbers. How are businesses who produce this kind of report evaluated? Do people count the number of times they predicted correctly or incorrectly?

I have a good friend who worked in investor relations for a tech company that IPO'd. He worked with these analysts and they would send him models. I'm told that most of these analysts were juggling 5+ companies and couldn't devote much time to any particular company without neglecting the others. Due to this, their models were often very poor or were missing large, publicly known items.

Something to think about.

Some stories are incredible, for example the Dragon horror story that was featured here a few weeks ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/business/goldman-sachs-and...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10994707

> I find it very surprising that investors would follow such guidance without being able to see the numbers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx4poQw1mZo

> How are businesses who produce this kind of report evaluated?

These reports are made by sell-side analysts, and the banks are evaluated by how much profit their buy-side analysts can make. See a disconnect?

> Do people count the number of times they predicted correctly or incorrectly?

Google "analyst ranks", so I guess once a year, but investing is mostly a relationship-based environment so the actual ranks might not make a difference that often

I will say Dave Wessels is real good at this

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