Whose side are you on?

Any conflict of interest is fraught with tension. When it comes to sell-side analysts, the companies they analyze and the institutions they work for, the subject is so sensitive that few of the headliners from this Wall Street circus will acquiesce to being quoted - at least by name. Until recently the superstars of the market, sell-side analysts have fallen on hard times. The first slips in confidence started in the late 1990s, when many companies that had so recently gone public amidst sell-side