A research note written by a 15-year-old, who was not born when former UK chancellor Nigel Lawson dismissed City analysts as “teenage scribblers”, has become the talk of middle-aged media executives and investors.
Morgan Stanley's European media analysts asked Matthew Robson, one of the bank's interns from a London school, to describe his friends' media habits. His report proved to be “one of the clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen. So we published it,” said Edward Hill-Wood, head of the team.
The response was enormous. “We've had dozens and dozens of fund managers, and several CEOs, e-mailing and calling all day,” said Mr Hill-Wood, 35, estimating that the note had generated five or six times more feedback than the team's usual reports. However, he made no claims for its statistical rigour.