An Overview of the Broker Research & Wall Street Insights® content set within AlphaSense
- What is Broker Research?
- What does Broker Research Contain?
- Types of Broker Research
- How to Access Broker Research
- Key AlphaSense Features
What is Broker Research?
Broker Research (also called Equity Research or Sell-Side Research) is developed by sell-side firms to help investors and hedge fund managers discover market opportunities and make informed investment decisions.
What does Broker Research Contain?
Broker Research is composed of detailed reports, models and estimates, videos, and podcasts published on companies, industries, fixed income, currencies and commodities, strategy, and economics. These reports focus on company financials, investment products, business strategies, potential deals, competition/peer analysis, and industry, country, or regional themes.
There are two general types of research: Real-Time Research and After-Market Research (also called Embargoed Research).
Real-Time Research
This term refers to broker research that is delivered in real-time, once published by sell-side firms. These reports are used for active trading of securities.
- Accessibility: Accessibility to Real-Time Research is contingent upon “entitlements”. An entitlement request can be submitted by you or by the AlphaSense entitlement team on your behalf. Typically, a broker will approve an entitlement request if you have a trading relationship with the broker (buy-side), an advisory relationship (PE), or a coverage relationship (IR) – i.e. if you have a relationship with the analyst who produces reports on their company. Entitlements can be granted at an individual level (User) or company-wide level (Firm).
- Open Access: Is an entitlement style offered by mid-tier or regional brokers, and a business model used by programmatic and smaller providers who offer access to their research without the need for entitlements, as a way of showcasing their work, in the hopes that clients who find it useful will contact them directly to establish a paying relationship.
- Embargo Period: N/A
After Market Research (AMR)
After Market Research, also known as Embargoed Research, is composed of many of the same brokers and reports that are available in Real-Time, but on a delayed time frame – typically 0-7 days after it has been made available to Real-Time clients. These reports provide a wealth of information on companies and industries that users leverage for idea generation, monitoring peers, and getting up to speed on industry trends.
- Accessibility: Unlike real-time research, AMR does NOT require a broker entitlement. When a user gains access to AlphaSense, they receive access to an aggregate collection of AMR research based on a variety of factors.
- Embargo Period: Embargoes vary among brokers, but typically 0-7 days before the reports become available to AMR users.
Wall Street Insights®
WSI® is AlphaSense's default offering for corporates, consulting, and financial services clients. It features AMR and Real-Time Broker Research that is sourced from Third Party vendors or through direct partnerships with AlphaSense. AlphaSense’s Wall Street Insights® is the first and only equity research collection purpose-built for the market, providing corporations unprecedented access to a deep pool of equity research reports from thousands of expert analysts.
Through direct partnerships with Top Tier banks – such as Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays, Cowen, Deutsche Bank, Evercore ISI, HSBC, and many more – professionals can now access the world’s most revered equity research, indexed and searchable through AlphaSense.
- Accessibility: Varies, depending on user segment and line of business.
- Embargo Period: 0-7 days; varies per user type and broker.
Types of Broker Research Reports
Company Reports
Upgrades / Downgrades
- These reports are published when a stock analyst changes their opinion of a stock, and therefore changes their investment recommendation (Buy, Sell, or Hold).
- A stock is given a rating of Buy, Overweight, or Outperform when an analyst thinks the stock will outperform the market or its peers, and thus recommends that investors buy the stock. A stock is given a rating of Hold, Market Perform, or Equal Weight when an analyst expects the stock to perform at the same level as the market as a whole, and therefore recommend investors keep the stock if they have it already (neither buy nor sell it). A stock is given a rating of Sell, Underperform, or Underweight when an analyst thinks a stock will underperform the market, and therefore they recommend investors sell the stock.
- A stock upgrade means an analyst has changed their rating from Sell to Hold, or from Hold to Buy, indicating that they've become more optimistic about the stock's future returns. A stock downgrade means the opposite.
Estimate / Price Target Revisions
- A price target report is an analyst's projection of the future price of a security (such as a stock or bond). When setting a stock's price target, an analyst considers many fundamental and technical factors to determine what the stock is worth and where the price will be in 12-18 months. Price targets for the same security can be different because of the various valuation methods used by analysts, traders, and institutions. Price targets are typically published in tandem with Buy, Sell, Hold recommendations.
- A price target revision report is when an analyst revises their previous price target
Initiation Reports
- Initiation reports are published when a broker first begins covering a company. As this is the first research piece from the broker, it is typically very detailed and lengthy (20-50 pages). This report contains the stock details, as well as information on overall competition in the market, industry dynamics, etc.
Other Reports
- Industry reports
- Fixed income reports
- Economic / Macro reports
- Commodities reports
- Strategy / Other reports
How to Access Broker Research
- Open the Sources menu.
- Go to Research.
- Select Broker Research.
- Apply your filters and run your search.
NOTE: To select a specific firm, click the Multiple Firms drop down, and click Select... to see the full list.
Key AlphaSense Features
Table Export- Export tables to Excel.
More Sources- access all available content sources to filter for specific brokers.
Keyword Hits Pane- This allows you to jump to the relevant portions of the call discussing your company and/or topic of interest.
Screening- Ability to filter by type of report (Upgrades/Downgrades, Initiation, Credit research) without specifying a company universe