TheMarkets Adds Fitch Credit Research

Bank consortium-owned research aggregator TheMarkets.com has expanded the range of fixed-income content available via its Web-based platform with the addition of fundamental credit research from Fitch Solutions, the data and technology arm of ratings agency Fitch.

The Fitch content went live on TheMarkets' platform within the past month, providing users with research on all the issuers rated by Fitch, covering a range of sectors, including corporate finance, financial institutions, global infrastructure and public finance at the municipal, sovereign and supranational levels.

TheMarkets clients can access a range of Fitch research reports, including credit updates that include an individual issuer's current ratings and the rationale behind the score, as well as special industry reports and credit analysis reports.

"While the core market for our own distribution platform is very much fixed-income credit analysts with high demand for research within narrow sector boundaries, TheMarkets clients likely have a wider selection of markets they look at... and delivering our content via TheMarkets exposes Fitch's research to users beyond our traditional client base," says Ian Rothery, global head of third-party distribution and partnerships at Fitch Solutions.

Rothery says he expects Fitch's special industry- and issue-specific reports - which may focus on a new regulation or new market developments - to be particularly popular among investors generally trading equities or other asset classes who want to keep track of trends in fixed-income markets as an input to their trading decisions, as well as its sovereign research, which focuses on the credit status of a particular country and its underlying debt issues.

With TheMarkets' recently enhanced search and tagging engine for fixed-
income content, the platform automatically applies intelligent tags to the Fitch research as it enters the platform, making it easier for investors to search the content-for example, by screening specifically for high-yield or asset-backed securities and other instruments, says Roma Greening, head of contributor relations at TheMarkets.

"Investors have increasingly been looking at the credit markets," Greening says. "With the enhanced search engine and tagging ability for fixed-income content, and by bringing on board Fitch's research, we're meeting our clients' needs."