My Experience with Substantive Research

30 May 2016

Studying Finance and Investment at the University of Edinburgh has been an excellent experience. The academic experience has been wonderful and I have loved it so far. The student development team has played an important role in adding value to my experience as a postgraduate student here at the Business School. Throughout the academic year, they have provided us with numerous opportunities for development through interaction with the industry professionals. The two best experiences for me were the State Street Trek and the ongoing project with an independent research company called Substantive Research.

Today I want to talk about my experience with Substantive Research. Substantive Research is an independent research company based in London. During semester one of my master’s degree, we had a course called “Financial Markets” where we learnt about the market for research in finance, and the growth of independent research providers. So when the student development team offered us an opportunity to get involved with one of the independent research providers, I thought this would be a great opportunity to see how the things we learnt in semester one are applied in practice. I wanted to understand the importance of “Independence” in the market for research, and how it is achieved in the industry. Seven of us from the Finance and Investment class were chosen to participate in this project.

This was a valuable experience, which allowed me to gain more exposure in the industry. The project required us to rank macro-economic research, from by various different providers, according to pre-specified criteria. I graduated with an undergraduate degree in economics, and this research ranking opportunity allowed me to see how economic factors are used in financial markets, for example, trade relationship between China and USA, or the Fed Rates hikes, and how investors anticipate such events and how these affects their investment choices. More importantly, this opportunity has kept me commercially up-to date with various economic activities going on around the world. It has been a great opportunity to learn, understand and develop further.

An important skill that I have developed from this experience is that, if I come across a research article produced by an analyst, I am be able to judge the quality of the research. This has been a great opportunity, as this would allow me to judge the quality of the research and the price that is being charged for it! Because the market for research is not very transparent, the skills I have gained from this opportunity will help me distinguish between a good and a poor quality research.

We started this project in March, and we have been reporting the progress to Mr Mike Carrodus, who is the founder of Substantive Research, through Skype calls. He was really supportive and provided us with good feedback through Skype calls. But on 23 of May, we finally had an opportunity to meet him in person. The student development team had set up a meeting at the business school, where Mr Carrodus gave us a detailed feedback on the job we had been doing, and we provided him with some suggestions and issues we faced during the ranking process. Overall, the meeting was very interactive and more importantly we could see how we were adding value to the company. Mr Carrodus also offered to extend our contract over the summer if we wanted to carry on, which I happily signed up to.

This research ranking opportunity allowed me to see how economic factors are used in financial markets, for example, trade relationship between China and USA, or the Fed Rates hikes, and how investors anticipate such events and how these affects their investment choices. More importantly, this opportunity has kept me commercially up-to date with various economic activities going on around the world.

Finally, I would like to thank our student development office: Neil Thomas and Ruth Greig, for providing us with this opportunity. I am glad I was selected for this project and it was a wonderful experience because I was learning more and also because I knew I was adding value to the company.

Sayujya Sharma, MSc Finance and Investment