CIBC analyst got death threats on Citigroup: report - Yahoo! News

It is well known that there have traditionally been many more buy recommendations than sell. This has been largely explained incentives both of the analyst (who does not want to lose the information that comes from better access to management) and from the brokerage firm (who does not want to lose potential investment banking business). Recent research (Kadan, Madureira, Wang, and Zach) suggests that these problems have been at least somewhat mitigated by regulations, but not completely.

Why? Well in what sounds like a plot from a novel or movie, we may have to add another explanation: Death threats!!!

CIBC analyst got death threats on Citigroup: report - Yahoo! News:

"The analyst whose downgrade of Citigroup Inc sparked a broad stock market sell-off on Thursday said she has received several death threats stemming from her research, the Times of London said. Meredith Whitney of CIBC World Markets Inc late Wednesday downgraded Citigroup to 'sector underperformer,' saying the largest U.S. bank by assets might need to raise more than $30 billion of capital and cut its dividend. Her downgrade triggered a 6.9 percent drop in Citigroup's shares.... 'People are scared to be negative, especially when a company has such a wide holding,' Whitney told the Times of London in an article published Saturday. 'Clients are not pleased with my call and I have had several death threats,' she continued. 'But it was the most straightforward call I've made in my career and I am surprised my peer analysts have been resistant. It's so straightforward, it's indisputable."

Wow! Can that be true?