After a evening run today, I sat down on, on a bench, in the outdoors and did some thinking. Do i like my job as an equity research analyst? I think I like the subject. You read about the industry, you think, you talk to management, you ask the right questions, you apply common sense and a lot of conservatism and because the market is irrational and myopic at times, you can be right agaisnt the market and make some easy money.

But i do not like the way that equity research is performed in real life and which i have to follow in order to fufill my job obligations. Too rush, too short-term in thinking, not cautious enough,overly emphasis on numerical estimates, dosent give a big enough margin of safety, too follow-the-herd.

It is important, i think, to slow dow the research process. Slowing down and doing other things on the sideline, letting your thoughts float when you are doing other things, thats when get a more wholesome picture, thats when you noticeed the social and economic trends around you, thats when you test and retest whats on paper and what management tells you agaisnt common sense.

So what? So how? This industry is like that. Every sell-brokerage is like that. Even for smaller firms which are suppossed to be more independent. Because they try to do too many reports to earn money from SGX, they cant apply much thinking or cautiousness too. Buy-side is worse, their know less than the buy-side. They dont bet with their own money.

The only way out for me it seems is to defy the industry, to strike out on my own, betting on my own money, answerable to no one. For that to happen, i need a lot of money. At least a million. Will companies talk to me if i have only a million to play with. Well, i dont have to talk to the head. Applying some ingenuity, i can formulate the right questions to ask the lower ranks. I can like harari, call up the restaurants to ask how may seats they have. And in a depression, perhaps the boss will be so bored, they wont mind talking to me.

Now how do i get that 1 million???