Form: Research note

What it is

An internal or semi-public memorandum making a contrarian case, primarily for an investment committee, a fund's internal PMs, or a limited partner audience. Not published to the public market. Distinct from activist decks and short reports in that the goal is decision-making, not persuasion of outside shareholders.

Typical settings:

Hedge fund analyst pitching a long/short idea to the PM
Family office memorandum justifying a conviction position
Fund-of-funds explaining a manager selection to LPs
Sell-side desk's contrarian ideas report (where that posture exists)

When to use it

✅ The audience is internal or known
✅ The decision sought is capital allocation, not a board vote
✅ The argument is contrarian but does not require public activism
✅ You need freedom to be exploratory, to acknowledge uncertainty, and to scenario-plan
❌ Do not use this form for a public campaign — the voice is too measured; use forms/activist-deck.md or forms/letter-to-board.md
❌ Do not use for short publication — forms/short-report.md has different legal and forensic requirements

Length

Short note: 3–6 pages. Single thesis, one key chart.
Standard note: 8–15 pages. Full thesis with scenario analysis.
Deep dive: 20–40 pages. Foundation for a conviction position.

The research note is the one form where page count should reflect the complexity of the underlying argument, not a presentation format.

Architecture

1  Executive summary      1 page
2  Thesis statement       1 paragraph
3  Variant perception     1–2 pages — why consensus is wrong
4  Business overview      2–3 pages
5  Quantitative case      3–5 pages — the math
6  Qualitative case       2–4 pages — the narrative
7  Scenario analysis      2–3 pages — bear / base / bull
8  Catalysts              1 page — what makes the market reprice
9  Risks                  1–2 pages — steel-man the other side
10 Position sizing        1 page — how much, how fast, how hedged

Executive summary

First page, read by everyone. Contains:

Ticker, price, market cap, position size proposed
Thesis in one sentence
Variant perception in one sentence — what the market believes vs. what we believe
Base-case return with timeframe
Key catalysts, with dates
Key risks (three)

If the PM only reads this page, they should be able to make a conviction-weighted decision.

Variant perception — the load-bearing section

This is the section that distinguishes a research note from a descriptive report. It answers: why is this opportunity available? Standard structure:

What the market believes — state it plainly, as the consensus would state it
Why the market believes it — the sources, the precedent, the heuristic
Why the market is wrong — the specific evidence or reasoning gap
Why the gap will close — the catalyst that converts our analysis into market price

A note without a variant-perception section is a descriptive report.

Voice

Measured, not adversarial. Research notes acknowledge uncertainty. "We believe", "we estimate", "our base case is" rather than the declarative voice of an activist deck.
First-person plural. "We" is the fund.
Transparent about conviction. "High conviction", "modest conviction", "initial position" are useful signals.
Steel-man the other side. A research note's credibility comes from taking the counter-argument seriously. Unlike an activist deck, here you show your work on why you still disagree.
Quantitative discipline. Every claim traceable to a number, every number traceable to a source.

Scenario analysis

Three scenarios with explicit probabilities:

              Probability   Price target    Return    Catalyst
Bear          25%           $X              −A%       [named]
Base          55%           $Y              +B%       [named]
Bull          20%           $Z              +C%       [named]

Expected value: [probability-weighted return]

The probabilities matter more than the price targets. A thesis with a 40% downside scenario at 25% weight should give pause regardless of the bull case.

Risks section

Steel-man three to five real risks. Not "execution risk" or "market risk" — specific, named, quantified risks:

"Peer X is consolidating and could be acquired first, closing the rerating window"
"The Q3 earnings cut could widen the near-term earnings gap before our thesis plays out"
"A tariff escalation would pressure the margin structure the thesis depends on"

For each: how it manifests, how you'd know, how you'd respond.

Position sizing

Research notes earn their keep by being actionable. Include:

Initial position size as % of fund
Scaling plan (triggers to add / trim)
Hedge structure (if any)
Liquidity constraints
Stop-loss or re-evaluation trigger
Time horizon

Catalysts

Named catalysts, dated. Categorise:

Scheduled: earnings, investor days, regulatory deadlines
Probable: M&A activity in the sector, peer commentary
Possible: activist arrival, management change, capital-return announcement

A thesis without catalysts in the next 18 months is either too early or too structural for a fund with a defined time horizon.

Voice contrast — research note vs. activist deck

Dimension	Activist deck	Research note
Reader	Public shareholders	Internal committee
Purpose	Move external capital	Allocate internal capital
Voice	Declarative, adversarial	Analytical, probabilistic
Certainty	High — conviction is the product	Calibrated — uncertainty is a feature
Risks section	Buried or dismissed	Prominent and steel-manned
Closing	Call to action	Position recommendation

Anti-patterns

No variant perception. The thesis becomes a description rather than an insight.
Asymmetric steel-manning. Research notes that stack only confirming evidence lose the audience at the committee meeting.
Hidden conviction. If the note is high-conviction, say so; if it's exploratory, label it as such.
No catalysts. A thesis without a clock becomes a thesis for a research shop, not a fund.
Too-tidy scenarios. Bear / base / bull with identical ±20% bands signals the scenarios weren't actually thought through.

Common use cases

Pre-activist research notes: the private analysis that precedes a public letter or deck
Follow-on analysis during a campaign: internal updates to the PM as the campaign evolves
Post-mortems: written after a campaign to extract lessons

Exemplars

Research notes are rarely published — by design. Public-facing cousins include:

Greenlight Capital letter format — quarterly LP letters with thesis sections (Peloton Oct 2024)
Pershing Square annual reports — long-form conviction pieces
Muddy Waters pre-publication memos — the forensic case before it goes public
Third Point's quarterly letter thesis sections — conviction briefs for specific positions

Find anything