The New Criterion

The New Criterion has evolved from "The Criterion" column which was a weekly run by the NewsCorp owned "The Australian" Newspaper (Business Section) for over a decade until recently when it decided that its audience did not really gravitate to the coverage in the Small/ Micro Caps space despite the strong following from its readership.

IIR since then essentially took over the column and its ethos, whereby, analysis is put to companies where these companies have no nexus to the core research offering other than discussing those stocks that deserve perhaps more of a journalistic approach rather than the typical financial research thesis or precise. For example analyst frequently disregard the "sentiment" and the qualitative factors in the market that are "fashionable" and drive the price of all stocks in the sector that has a emotional wave of value - this is often later included in the equity research thesis, however these attributes can be observed and commented on from a non-equity analysis perspective in terms of attributing other factors that drive a valuation for a company which has little or no nexus to the fundamentals of that same stock. However these qualitative attributes cannot be ignored by a Broker and must be taken into account when dealing in stock.

So at IIR we attempt to marry the thesis observed by both arms of research one is based on the reasonable expectations of an Financial Analyst as we know and the other is the liberal arts approach which looks at matters like for example the CEO's tone every quarter when making his announcements - change in tone should be a warning and a trigger for further review - of course some analyst cover both disciplines and more very competently in the industry - and as such make great Sell Side Analysts.

At IIR we do not deal or promote any stocks so we one step removed from what a Sell Side Analyst does which closer to the market than research. Our research simply assists the broker to form a view to prepare a statement of advice for his or her client.

Under no circumstances have there been any inducements or like made by the company mentioned to either IIR or the author. The views here are independent and have no nexus to IIR’s core research offering. The views here are not recommendations and should not be considered as general advice in terms of stock recommendations in the ordinary sense. These are stocks that interest our research team on other qualitative metrics rather than the usual accepted methods of equities research screening tools.