I noticed that all 3rd party equity analyst research consolidators are a good 5-30 minutes too late to actually trade realtime analyst updates. How much does that stuff cost to get it direct from, say, Merril Lynch? Does that stuff run in the thousands/yr per firm? I know hedge funds have direct channels to the analyst firms, but how accessible is it to the main st. trader with some spending money? Also, do the 3rd party consolidators (e.g., Briefing.com, theflyonthewall) just subscribe to the firms' research as a retail investor would and post updates as they are made available? Please only respond if you have direct knowledge. Throwing out speculative posts will only add noise to this post.
I worked in the retail dept of Merrill and Morgan Stanley. We had live feed to the analyst calls. In the "old days" it was a squawk box on our desks then it eventually went to live video feed on the desk top computers. Clients were able to get the research reports on-line soon after the analyst morning calls. Although I haven't had an account or access to a wirehouse in a few years I would think that clients would still have similar access. Recently a day trader had charges brought against them because he was paying brokers to get him access to the morning calls. I'm not sure of the details and don't really get why that was illegal. I hope that helps. Good luck.