Stock analysts who actually sign up as official "advisers" give way better tips because they’re legally forced to be honest with you.
SSRN · March 13, 2026 · 6287738
Why it matters
Most people assume Wall Street bias is an unchangeable cultural trait. This research demonstrates that simply changing an individual's legal registration status to one with a "fiduciary" obligation (loyalty to the client) actually cleans up their behavior and improves the quality of the information they give the public.
From the abstract
We examine how regulatory registration status affects financial analyst research quality by documenting a previously unknown phenomenon: individual analysts who simultaneously register with FINRA as broker-dealer representatives and the SEC as investment adviser representatives. Using hand-collected data, we find that approximately 12% of analysts in our sample are dual-registered. We find that dual-registered analysts exhibit significantly less bias and demonstrate greater accuracy and conserva