StockViews Preps Paid, On-Demand Research Platform; Readies International Coverage

The platform, which has until now been free of charge, allows "analysts"─not necessarily industry analysts, but rather any member of the platform who contributes recommendations─to post their stock recommendations or thesis, with a "rating" of buy, sell or neutral. The site then tracks the performance of recommendations in real time to compare them against other analysts. As part of the revamp, StockViews has improved this real-time tracking element, enabling users to provide immediate feedback on a piece of research, and to assign it a rating of between one and five. The vendor has also introduced a peer-review system so analysts can compare each other and collaborate on future products if they share similar specialties.

The paid-for research model will go live later this year, using two tools that will turn the platform and its community into a "marketplace for analysts and investors," says StockViews chief executive Thomas Beevers. The Supply Push tool will allow analysts to publish research directly onto the platform, which investors will then pay to access, while the OnDemand Research tool will allow investors to submit a pitch for specific research they want done. The platform then searches for the right analysts to fulfil that request, and connects the fund manager to the analyst.

"For example, users can search for all of the top analysts on oil stocks or consumer goods stocks. Or maybe you want to find an analyst who has a particular style, so if you want to find an analyst who looks at data from a value perspective or an analyst who looks at data from a growth perspective... then you can layer on these different search value functionalities. So if you want to find a consumer goods analyst who looks at the sector from a value perspective then you can find that," Beevers says.

In fact, the StockViews "community" has grown drastically over the last year and now has more than 340 contributing analysts, 25,000 ratings, and over 1,000 research notes, Beevers says. The volume of information and depth of research available has also grown over the same period. "Investors have much more choice when they come to the platform. There are more specializations and many more different types of analysts that they can search for," he says.

To make it easier to navigate the larger selection of analysts, StockViews has also added filters to the platform, enabling investors to search by an analyst's specialization or expertise, Beevers says, adding that the platform's value is its ability to link investors to the right analysts. "There are a lot of equity research products, but it's quite a traditional industry. What we're trying to do here is fuse a lot of the good practice that we see in modern internet products with the very old-style equity research industry."

Beevers says fund managers may need some convincing before becoming comfortable with the platform, despite appealing to their appetite for more affordable research. "Equity research is a very traditional industry... however, at the same time, [fund managers] are also dissatisfied with the quality of research that they're getting from the big banks.... [and] are often surprised by how a freelance model can produce very high-quality research," he says.

Initially the platform was aimed at US retail investors, but client demand over the past year for information on European and Asian stocks is fuelling an expansion into international markets. "The first market we're adding is Canada, which should come in September. After that, we'll be adding European markets, [followed by] the Chinese market and the Indian market over the fall," Beevers says, adding that he expects to see significant demand from Asian countries─especially China, where there exists a large community of active retail investors, as well as a large community of freelance analysts covering the market─as well as from India.

"In some respects, India is a market like the US, where a lot of retail investors like to invest directly in the stock market rather than through an advisor [so] that's an interesting market for us as well," he adds.