Research Overview

As our name implies, research plays a central role in everything we do. Whether we're dealing with sales, trading, investment banking or asset management, insightful research is indispensable in providing value to our clients. Our research provides us with a comprehensive understanding of the economy, financial markets, and individual companies, all of which are essential in recommending successful investments.

We approach our research effort from two directions; from the top down and the bottom up. Our top-down approach, based on our economic and market analysis, provides a "bigger picture" perspective. Based on this perspective, we assess the overall economic climate, formulate a market strategy and identify attractive industry niches, themes and trends. Our bottom-up approach, based on our fundamental company research, serves to root out those companies positioned to benefit from market opportunities identified by our top-down work, as well as to uncover new opportunities from a "grass roots" level. By employing these two complementary approaches, we are able to leverage the expertise of our team of analysts, resulting in an increased occurrence of successful investments.

Moreover, perhaps the most important aspect of our research efforts is communicating relevant information to our clients in a timely and useful manner. To this end, we have always believed in "putting it in writing." Not only does this writing discipline serve to keep our clients informed, it fosters critical thinking among our analysts and leads to conclusive, action-oriented recommendations. In addition to written research, we encourage an open line of communication between our clients and analysts. We pride ourselves on our analysts' accessibility and our quick client response times.

Our research can be delivered in a number of ways. All of our research is available to our clients through the 'Research Online' section of our website. It is also available via U.S. mail, e-mail, fax or third-party online vendors such as FirstCall, Multex, Investext, Zacks and IBES Trapeze.

For more information about our research products and services, please contact Alexander Paris, Jr. at (312) 634-6352.