Growing Rich - Arabictrader.com

KIRK KAZANJIAN
wouldn’t have paid me,” he quips. “Many times he would say, ‘Come
work for me and we’ll see how it goes,’ but I wanted to get a job on
my own.”
The Bank of New York was the oldest financial institution in the
state. It was known for being research-oriented, with a strong trust
and money management department. “What I liked most about it was
it didn’t have a long training program, where you had to spend time
being a teller or dealing with a lot of back-office issues in order to
move up in the ranks,” Davis says. “I immediately went to work in
the equity research department. I was an assistant to a research analyst,
hoping to one day become an analyst myself.” Bank of New York
analysts prepared regular industry reports, which were widely respected.
They were mailed out to institutions around the country, including
insurance companies and other banks that wanted help in running
their own trust departments. They would compensate the bank for
these reports either with cash or by establishing an account. There
were 15 to 20 analysts on staff, all of whom enjoyed a national
reputation. “The bank was also willing to move you along in your
investment career quickly, because it didn’t care if you knew how the
rest of the bank operated,” Davis adds. “If you wanted to be on the
research side, that’s where you started on day one.”
Because he already had some investing experience from working
for his dad, Davis wanted to step right into the firing line of picking
stocks. It was a great time to be in the market. The 1950s were glorious
years for equities, similar to the 1980s. “It was a wonderful era, and
I was lucky because a lot of the analysts I worked with at the bank
got better job offers after I arrived,” he recalls. “That meant I was
quickly promoted to senior analyst. I covered many industries, including
aluminum, copper, nickel, machinery, cement, automobiles, steel,
oil, and rubber. Some very good men trained me. I did industry
comparisons, looking at sales, profit margins, and earnings, and
evaluating each company to see how it stacked up against the competition.
I wanted those stocks that were outperforming in terms of
profit margins and returns on capital. I also factored in price. Once
a year, I put out a report on each of the industries I was in charge of.
They were distributed to all of our important clients.”
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