6 AM Pacific

Is Everyone a Day Trader

[Cross-posted on the Gridstone Blog].

Ft.com has a nice widget that is very recent by my reckoning. If you hover over the name of a public company in any article on ft.com, a nice “chartlet” pops up. If you click on the company it takes you to the company in the Company Research part of their website.

I thought the pop-up was quite cool. It performs well, looks nice. It could even have been useful to readers. If I have one problem with it, it is the choice of the chart – a daily price chart. More »

Tags: Capital Markets, Equity Research, Gridstone

Thomas Weisel Shutters Discovery Research

Last week Thomas Weisel Partners announced that it is shutting down its small cap research offering, Discovery Research. The 8-K filing says

Thomas Weisel Partners Group, Inc. (“Registrant”) announced today that it would discontinue its Discovery Research coverage of U.S. equities. That coverage is being discontinued as a result of the recruitment of key Discovery Research personnel to BNP Paribas Securities (Asia) Limited, a BNP Paribas affiliate. Thomas Weisel Partners is pursuing its legal remedies in connection with these departures. Discovery Research, a subscription-based research product, was produced out of Thomas Weisel Partners’ office in Mumbai, India. Thomas Weisel Partners intends to continue to conduct other business and operations through its Mumbai, India office.

There are two different reasons why I find this news interesting. More »

Tags: Capital Markets, Equity Research, Flatworld, India

Gridstone Excel Add-in

We just released a very important product - an Excel Add-in that allows Analysts to pull in our rich data directly into their spreadsheets. Excel is very central to the work flow of our users. We think that this is probably the easiest-to-use Excel Add-in in the Financial Information business.

I whipped up a Slidecast about it. Even if you are not connected to the Financial world, take a look at it. I think it is effective and I spent about a day on it and that too because I tried many different approaches until I hit my stride. Feedback is welcome. If you’re interested in the tools I used, leave a comment.

Tags: Equity Research, Gridstone, Technology

Pricing Sell-Side Research – Reading the Tea Leaves

Sell-side Research has had some very trying times in the past few years. And it’s not over yet. Unbundling brokerage services (trade execution) from research services has not only compressed research fees, it has also raised important questions like “What is this research really worth?” There seems to be no easy way to measure the value of research. So how does one price the service?

Expertise, which is what a sell-side firm has to offer, is sold in many other industries. There are primarily two pricing models that are common. Law firms and management consulting firms like McKinsey price their services by time. Technology research firms like Gartner sell their research through subscription based pricing models. There are other models of course (investment banks price their services as a % of the transaction value) but these are the two primary ones. More »

Tags: Capital Markets, Equity Research

The Napsterization of Sell-Side Research

Cross-posted on the Gridstone Blog.

Candace Browning, Head of Research at Merrill Lynch posted an open letter last week that talked about the “Napsterization” of sell-side research, justifying why Merrill Lynch would have to take control of the distribution of their research. More »

Tags: Capital Markets, Economics, Equity Research