Financial and Investment Analysts

Core tasks are already automatable. Building a DCF from a 10-K, spreading quarterly comps, tracking guidance changes across a coverage universe, and drafting the earnings-day note are all sequence-to-sequence work over structured filings and transcripts — the data feeds are machine-readable and the output templates are standardized, which is why this sits at 6 rather than in the mixed band where original channel checks or private-company diligence would push it.

Fully desk- and screen-based. The job is a Bloomberg terminal, Excel, and a video call with management; the 2 rather than 0 covers site visits, plant tours, and conference attendance that a few sell-side and PE-side analysts still do, but nobody's model breaks because they couldn't be physically present.

Certification preferred, not legally required. Series 86/87 gates publishing research and Reg AC requires the analyst to certify the view is their own, but no statute makes an analyst personally answerable for a bad price target — enforcement lands on the firm's supervisory failures, which is why this is 6 and not the 12-plus that a CPA attesting to financials carries.

Some relationship component. Buy-side clients pay for a specific analyst's access and call history, and a corporate-development analyst's standing with the CFO matters — but coverage is reassigned, ranked sell-side analysts are substituted, and most junior and internal-FP&A analysts produce output the consumer never attributes to a person, holding this at 10.

Meaningful discretion. Setting the terminal growth rate, deciding a management explanation is not credible, and putting a Sell on a banking client's stock are consequential calls the analyst signs, but they route through an investment committee, a PM's position sizing, or a research director's review before capital moves — real discretion inside a mandate, not final authority over it.