The rise of the rockstar analyst

It is that time of year when the big investment banks try to justify the vast amounts of money lavished on their research departments by presenting their annual forecast for the year ahead.

If I was running an investment bank, I would present the event from Stonehenge featuring old men in tunics and togas reading the runes and declaring we are all doomed – which is presumably why I will never work in such an institution. The big bank presentations, by contrast, tend to be measured by the size of the graphs (the bigger and more logarithmic the better), the sheer quantity of impossible-to-read tables and the grandstanding predictions for the FTSE December 2010. But there is one glorious exception to the rule – Socgen’s annual Rock and Roll Love In/Strategy Update. This fea...