Analyst coverage matters?

Seems to, according to this Wall Street Journal article (subscription required to view full article). Here's how it starts:

A year ago, investment analysts from seven brokerage firms shadowed the financial progress of Intevac Inc., a small, Santa Clara, Calif., technology firm. Today, a lone analyst is all that remains.

"That coverage was pretty important to us," says Jeff Andreson, Intevac's chief financial officer. Among other woes, losing coverage "hurts liquidity, making it harder for our institutional investors to build or sell positions," Mr. Andreson says.

Intevac isn't unique. Whether due to layoffs, attrition, retirement or brokerage firms moving analysts around, Wall Street's map of corporate coverage is shrinking these days.

Westpac cuts dividend

Westpac joins the ranks of the dividend cutters this week. Some accounting analysis helps explain why.

More bad debts for the banks

Some of the banks are set to report this week, and more doom and gloom is expected, particularly with respect to bad debts. Bad debt provisioning is always one area where managers have some discretion. In the current climate, asset writedowns are also going to be of interest, and have been the focus of discussion of Macquarie's recent results announcement.