Smith Barney Sheds Analysts, Cuts Coverage
The stock market may be showing signs of a revival, but Wall Street firms keep shedding research analysts and reducing their stock coverage.
On Friday,
Citigroup's
(C) - Get Report
Smith Barney brokerage division said it is "temporarily" dropping coverage of 117 companies in seven sectors, after dismissing about seven analysts. The nation's largest financial-services firm, in an internal memo, attributed the move to "market conditions."
Some of the sectors Citigroup has stopped covering include utilities, health care services, specialty chemicals, airlines and telecom equipment/wireless. Some of the analysts let go by the firm include health care analyst Deborah Lawson, telecom analyst T.C. Robillard and utilities analyst Raymond Niles.
After the moves, Citigroup said it now covers roughly 70% of the companies in the
Standard & Poor's 500
index. The firm, in the memo, said its goal is to increase its coverage to 90% of the companies in the index by year's end. It also plans to reinstate coverage in a number of discontinued sectors in the next two months.
Over the past few months, Wall Street brokerage firms have been covering fewer and fewer companies, as the number of analyst they employ falls.