Market Mine: The rapidly changing (reducing) role of the traditional sell-side analyst

Not surprising, given low commissions, less and less research coming from the sell-side.

From Penny Herscher: : The rapidly changing (reducing) role of the traditional sell-side analyst:

"....from Rick Hanley's chart here -- the price of a trade has dropped continuously. Trading volume and investment banking were the two sources of funding for sell-side research -- for the first the price per trade has plummeted, for the second Elliot Spitzer put up a wall between IB and research -- and so the business model of traditional sell-side research within the big broker dealers is broken."

Of course the internet has driven down the costs of research so overall likely the research being done has just been shifted to the actual investor.