Regular readers are familiar with our philosophy on bank research reports: the only reports worth spending time reading, and certainly trading on, are those which are the product of prop desks and/or flow traders (in fact, one could argue that these are more important than 99% of most hedge fund and buyside research at a time when "idea dinners" and "alpha generation" within the buyside community revolves around a handful of AI names, all of which are in the Goldman Hedge Fund VIP basket anyway). Those are the reports we provide to our professional subscribers because they actually generate substantial alpha, as they are written at the time prop trader from bank XYZ puts on a given position, and are shared with a very select group of favorite whale clients. The rest of the bank's clients have to wait for the traditional sellside team to catch up to what the prop/flow desk has already been doing for days/weeks.

It's also why when it comes to traditional sellside research, it's great to use for copy/paste purposes - especially the initiating coverage reports - and to get a sense of what others are thinking, but it's absolutely useless for anyone hoping to source alpha. In fact, by the time an idea makes it to the sellside, it's time is past and if anything one should do the opposite, and more times than note, the bank's own prop/flow desk is taking the other side of the trade, as several very amusing episodes involving JPM's now former strategist Marko Kolanovic and JPM's market intel trading desk, demonstrated in the not too distant past.

JPM Kolanovic: repent, for the end is nigh

JPM trading desk: here comes the year-end rally https://t.co/1sVZks9cC3

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 2, 2023