Key Takeaways

• Some investment research firms in the US are Morningstar, Zacks Investment Research, and Seeking Alpha. 
• Some investment research firms in Australia are Lonsec Group Holdings and Zenith Investment Partners. 
•  5i Research and Accountability Research Corporation (ARC) are some firms that provide premium investor research and expertise in Canada.
•  TS Lombard and Macro Thoughts are some investment research firms in Europe.

Introduction

Premium Investor Research Firms in the US

Morningstar

• Morningstar is an independent investment research firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
• The firm has been empowering investors' success since 1984 by providing them with great, independent investing advice through a combination of high-quality data, design, technology, and independent thinking.
• The company offers resources and research to individual investors, retired professionals, investment advisors, and asset managers.
• The firm has two tiers: Morningstar Basic and Morningstar Premium, which help subscribers find, evaluate, and monitor investments that best meet their needs.
• As of December 2020, Morningstar had 113,000 paid Premium subscribers in the US and an additional 16,000 Premium subscribers globally.

Morningstar Basic

• Individual investors can get access to Morningstar's Basic plan by registering on the firm's website. This gives them access to the firm's "trusted personal finance expertise and free investing tools."
• The Basic plan includes the following:
• Full access to the Article Archive. 
• Limited access to Screeners, the Portfolio X-ray, and the Portfolio Manager.

Morningstar Premium

• Morningstar Premium memberships cost $29.95 for monthly subscriptions, $199 for annual subscriptions, $349 for two-year subscriptions, and $449 for three-year subscriptions. The firm currently offers a free 14-day Premium membership trial
• The Premium plan gives members access to:
• Analyst Reports: "Continuous, unbiased assessment of thousands of securities to guide your portfolio decisions."
• Top Investment Picks: "Our analysts’ best mutual fund, stock, and ETF picks all in one place, the Best Investments Center provides pre-screened lists by investment type and financial goal."
• Portfolio Manager: "A clear view of your portfolio with personalized reports and ratings. Receive statements monthly or on-demand."
• Portfolio X-Ray: "A snapshot of your portfolio’s basic characteristics with Instant X-ray. With Premium, a thorough analysis with 12 additional tools to help ensure a properly diversified portfolio."
• Screeners: "Sort thousands of investments in seconds. With Premium, filter against Morningstar ratings and choose from exclusive screeners for our short list of today’s best stock, mutual fund, and ETFs investment opportunities."
• Article Archive: "Extensive library of articles by Morningstar's Investing Specialists provides insight and personal finance expertise."

Morningstar Investor Newsletters

• In addition to its Basic and Premium Plans, Morningstar also offers investor newsletters for stock investors, fund investors, dividend investors, and ETF investors.
• Each newsletter gives investors access to the following:
• Analyst Research: "the latest thinking and most sought-after analysis."
• Morningstar Watchlists: "a list of securities being monitored for their potential fit within each strategy."
• Bonus Reports: "investment supplements to help you make the most of your subscription."
• Email Alerts: "intra-issue commentary including a roundup of Morningstar analyst notes and new issue alerts."
• Subscriber-Only Websites: "monthly issue and commentary archives plus current data on the portfolios and watchlists."
•  Editor access is included with every subscription.

• The stock investor and fund investor newsletter subscriptions cost $145 and $165 annually for the digital and print versions, respectively.
• The dividend investor and ETF investor newsletter subscriptions cost $199 and $219 annually for the digital and print versions, respectively.

Zacks Investment Research

• Zacks Investment Research is an independent investment research firm committed to sharing profitable discoveries with investors since its founding in 1984.
• Zacks has the following premium tiers/packages: Zacks Premium, Zacks Investor Collection, Zacks Ultimate, Research Wizard, and Zacks Method for Training.

Zacks Premium

• Zacks Premium package has the following:
• "Daily updates of the Zacks Rank."
• "Full access to the Zacks #1 Rank List."
• "Equity Research Reports."
• "Focus List portfolio of 50 longer-term stocks."
• "Premium screens and much more."
• Zacks Premium package allows investors to "quickly identify which stocks to buy, which to sell and target today's hottest industries." The package costs $249 a year with a 30-day free trial.

Zacks Investor Collection

• Zacks Investor Collection is a collection of the firm's top subscription services for long-term investors. The package gives investors access to:
• "An inside peek of the real-time buy and sell signals from all of Zacks' long-term investor portfolios, including the exclusive Stocks Under $10 strategy which isn't available to the general public."
• "Premium research tools and reports for finding your own winning stocks, ETFs and mutual funds."
• Zacks Investor Collection subscription costs $59/month or $495/year with 30-day trial access for only $1.

Zacks Ultimate

• The Zacks Ultimate package is a unique program that gives investors full access for 30 days to Zacks' "market insights and the most private picks from all of our portfolio recommendation services for only $1. Even those that are so exclusive they've been closed to new investors."
• This allows investors to sample different investment styles to find those that best fit their trading style and risk tolerance. Investors also have access to Zacks' expert commentary and recommendations to help them navigate market conditions confidently.
• The Ultimate Package offers the following: "black box trader, blockchain innovators, commodity innovators, counterstrike, ETF Investor, headline trader, healthcare innovators, home run investor, income investor, insider trader. large-cap trader, marijuana innovators, options trader, short sell list, stocks under $10, surprise trader, value Investor, TAZR, technology innovators, Zacks Premium, Zacks Confidential, and Zacks top 10 stocks."
• Zacks Ultimate Package costs $299/month or $2995/year with a 30-day trial access for only $1.

Zacks Tools

• Other premium tools offered by Zacks for investors are Research Wizard and Zacks Method for Trading. 

Seeking Alpha

•  Seeking Alpha is an investment research firm that provides research and insights by investors for investors to "empower investors to make the absolute best investing decisions by leveraging our independent and balanced stock research, fundamental analysis tools, crowdsourced debate, reliable news, and actionable market data."
• Seeking Alpha was founded in 2004 is considered the largest investing community in the world with about 20 million monthly users. 
• There are three subscription plans offered by Seeking Alpha: Basic, Premium, and Pro.

Basic Plan

• Seeking Alpha's basic plan is free and offers subscribers the following:
• "Stock analysis email alerts."
• "Real-time news updates."
• "Investing newsletters."
• "Unlimited access to stock prices & charts."
• "Wall Street Ratings for every stock."
• "Limited access to in-depth news & analysis."

Premium Plan

• Seeking Alpha's Premium plan costs $19.99 a month when billed annually or $29.99 a month when billed monthly.
• The Premium plan offers all Basic features plus:
• "Unlimited access to Premium content."
• "Seeking Alpha Author Ratings."
• "Seeking Alpha Author Performance."
• "Stock Quant Ratings."
• "Stock Dividend Grades."
• "Ad-lite."

Pro Plan

• Seeking Alpha's Pro plan costs $199.99 a month when billed annually and $299.99 a month when billed monthly.
• The Pro plan gives subscribers access to all Premium Features, plus:
•  Top Ideas.
• "PRO content & newsletters."
• "Short ideas portal."
•  "Idea screener/filter."
•  VIP Service.
•  No ads. 

Premium Investor Research Firms in Australia

Lonsec Group Holdings

• Lonsec Australia was founded in 1994, and it connects "financial advisers, fund managers, super funds and individuals with the tools, data and insights to make better investment decisions, grow their funds, engage better with members, and meet their best interest obligations."
• Lonsec has received Money Management's "Research House of the Year" award for the past 4 years running in 2016, 2017, 2018 & 2019.
• Lonsec offers the following solutions to individual investors The SMSF Investor, Super Ratings, and Lonsec’s award-winning research. 

The SMSF Investor/Award-Winning Research

• The SMSF Investor is Lonsec's initiative that "combines institutional quality investment research & education from the country’s largest investment research team, with SMSF trustee education."
• The SMSF subscription costs $550 when billed annually and $55 a month when billed monthly.
• The SMSF Investor subscription gives subscribers access to:
• "Leading investment research across global markets and asset classes."
• "The latest in bespoke investment valuations and risk assessment."
• "Model investment portfolio insights with real world performance and results."
• "Member only access to the latest investment strategies, research and updates."
• "Detailed research on global macro, ASX 200 stocks, hybrids, ETFs, LICs, & managed funds."
• "Model portfolios for shares, hybrids, and diversified ASX listed assets."
• Lonsec also offers premium investment research to financial advisors, fund managers, and super funds.

Zenith Investment Partners

• Zenith is a leading and trusted investment research consultancy that has been providing clients with "premium investment research and fund ratings, and investment portfolio solutions and reporting" for two decades.
• Zenith Investment Partners support "a rapidly growing number of advisers nationally with research ratings on over 900 investment products and more than 100 investment portfolio solutions for their clients — both publicly available and customized portfolios."
• Subscribers can access Zenith's investment research, analysis, insights, and tools by choosing from the firm's two tiers: Silver or Gold.

Silver

• Zenith's "Silver package has two 'add on' options: Portfolio Builder, which allows you to design, maintain and compare client portfolios; and Equities Research, which provides access to profiles on ASX200 stocks."
• The Silver package gives subscribers access to:
• "Approved product list with ratings."
• "Product assessment reports."
• "Product profiles for SoA."
• "Monthly product performance reports."
•  Research alerts.
• "Monthly and quarterly market updates."
• "Quarterly asset class forecasts."
• "Fund analytics and performance comparisons." 

Silver + Portfolio Builder

• The Silver + Portfolio Builder package offers all Silver features plus the following portfolio builder features:
• "1 set of model portfolios."
• "Monthly client reporting."
• "Monthly adviser portfolio reporting."
• "Portfolio Builder tool."
• "Analytics and look-through."

Silver + Equities

• The Silver + Equities package offers all Silver features plus "Stock profiles — consensus ASX200." 

Gold

• The Gold package offers all the features of Silver, Silver + Portfolio Builder, and Silver + Equities.

Pricing

• Zenith does not provide any pricing information for their premium services, and interested clients are requested to get in touch with them for detailed pricing information.

Other Premium Investment Research Firms in Australia

•  Other firms that provide premium investor research and expertise in Australia are Morningstar Group (Australia) Pty Ltd, Marsh Mercer Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, Canstar Pty Limited, RKR Research Pty Ltd, Chant West Holdings Limited, Independent Investment Research Pty Ltd, SQM Research Pty Limited, Standard & Poor’s (Australia) Pty Ltd, and Van Eyk Research.

Premium Investor Research Firms in Canada

5i Research

• 5i Research provides individual investors in Canada with "research on stocks, model portfolios, forums, portfolio tracking tools and more."
• The firm offers clients two tiers to choose from 5iResearch and 5iResearch + Portfolio Analytics.

5i Research

• This tier costs $209.95/year, and offers clients the following features:
• "70+ easy-to-understand reports on the top companies in Canada."
• "Three model portfolios: Balanced, Income, and Growth."
• "Ask our Research Team your investing and portfolio questions."
• "Searchable database of over 100,000 answered questions."
• "Customizable alerts and analysis on stocks from your Watchlist."
• "Access to 5i's member-only forums." 

5iResearch + Portfolio Analytics

• This tier costs $390 a year, and it offers clients everything in the 5iResearch package, plus:
• "Screening your portfolio for critical mistakes and opportunities."
• "Portfolio allocation suggestions."
• "All your investment accounts in one place."
• "Statistics and idea generation."
• "Instant view of your portfolio by asset class, geography and sector."
• "Portfolio management alerts to help keep your portfolio optimized."

Accountability Research Corporation (ARC)

• ARC is "Canada's leading provider of independent investment research, is to continually produce proactive, innovative and actionable research ideas and tools to support portfolio managers, investment advisors, financial regulators, and boards of directors."
• ARC Independent Research has been providing "institutional investors and investment advisors with independent equity research on large-cap Canadian and US companies" for over two decades."
• ARC does not disclose any pricing information on its website.

Other Premium Investment Research Firms in Canada

• Other entities/firms that provide premium investor research and expertise in Canada include Veritas Independent Research, BC Capital Markets, BMO Capital Markets, CIBC Capital Markets, among others.

Premium Investor Research Firms in Europe

TS Lombard

• TS Lombard has 30 years of experience delivering independent investment research to clients in the UK, Europe, and globally.
• TS Lombard offers three distinct research services to clients: Global Macro, China and Global Emerging Markets and Global Strategy.
• The investment research firm does not publicly disclose its pricing information, and interested clients have to get in touch with them for a custom quote.

Global Macro

• Global Macro has the following features:
• "Daily Concise Reports keep you on top of our latest views on the global economy, emergent themes and specific countries.
• "Macro thematic research brings you in depth thematic analysis from our thought leaders, including Charles Dumas, Larry Brainard and Dario Perkins."
• "Detailed country research explores economics and politics in key markets, bringing you deep insights from our experts on the ground and in London."
• "Financial and business cycle research includes detailed quantitative analysis of financial and credit cycles and potential early warning triggers."
• "Political research provides a thorough examination of geopolitical themes as well as a broad analysis of each domestic political economy under coverage."
• "Chartbooks bring together key insights from across our research in one place."

China and Global Emerging Markets

• This research service contains:
• "Macro thematic research brings you in depth thematic analysis from our thought leaders, including Charles Dumas, Larry Brainard and Dario Perkins."
• "Detailed country research explores economics and politics in key markets, bringing you deep insights from our experts on the ground and in London."
• "Political research provides a thorough examination of geopolitical themes as well as a broad analysis of each domestic political economy under coverage."
• "Macro trade Ideas deliver global tactical trade ideas to play key macro themes."
• "Asset allocation provides absolute calls and relative positioning in model portfolios with a 3-6 month investment horizon, updated each month."
• "Chartbooks bring together key insights from across our research in one place.

Global Strategy

• The Global Strategy research service offers the following:
• "Financial and business cycle research includes detailed quantitative analysis of financial and credit cycles and potential early warning triggers."
• "Macro trade ideas deliver global tactical trade ideas to play key macro themes."
• "Asset allocation provides absolute calls and relative positioning in model portfolios with a 3-6 month investment horizon, updated each month."
• "Chartbooks bring together key insights from across our research in one place."

Macro Thoughts

• Macro Thoughts "provides independent, fundamental economic research and analysis, with proactive forecasts, as well as investment strategies across asset classes, and has been globally recognized for consistently forecasting key economic and market trends, ahead of the majority of commentators."
• Macro Thoughts has three plans: Monthly, Annual, and Enterprise.

Monthly

• The Monthly plan costs £150 per month and offers the following:
• "7-day free trial."
• "4 macro economic newsletters every month."
• "Macro economic updates throughout the week."
•  "Ad hoc special reports." 
•  "Access to full macro thoughts archive."
• "Invite to exclusive networking events." 

Annual

• The Annual plan costs £1,500 a year, and it offers the same features as the monthly plan, but subscribers get 12 months access for the price of ten months.

Enterprise

• Clients interested in the enterprise plan have to contact sales for pricing and discounts.
• The plan has the following features:
• "Volume discounting."
• "4 macro economic newsletters a month."
• "Macro economic updates throughout the week."
• "Ad hoc special reports."
• "Access to full macro thoughts archive."
• "Invite to exclusive networking events."
• "Admin panel to manage user access."
• "1 day on site consultancy."

Other Premium Investment Research Firms in Europe

• The European Association of Independent Research Providers (Euro IRP) represents the Independent Investment Research industry in Europe. 
• The association's members are firms that provide independent investment research to investors in Europe.
•  These firms include Entext Economics & Strategy, Ekins Guinness LLP, ECR Research, Blue Heron Research Partners, Alpha Value, among many others.

Research Strategy