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Merrill offers free research
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October 15, 1998: 7:19 a.m. ET
Free four-month net trial, as firm denies discounters forced its hand
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LONDON (CNNfn) - Merrill Lynch will offer its stock research free over the Internet during a four-month trial period.
Merrill, the largest U.S. brokerage firm, is a long standing critic of on-line trading. It denies the move marks a softening of its opposition which vice chairman John Steffens has labeled "a serious threat to the American's financial lives."
The research will be put on a new, free Internet site from November 2 until February 28. Users will have to register and obtain a password and then will be able to download much the same research that is available to the firm's big institutional clients.
Users must agree to receive future periodic emails from Merrill and may be contacted by a broker in the future, according to a test version of the site.
In the past, the firm has carefully guarded the research to differentiate itself from discount competitors.
But Merrill officials said that its motive for putting the research on the web was to generate leads for its 14,800 full-service brokers.
About 375,000 Merrill customers already have access to the firm's research online, a move that Steffens said was more significant than the new trial. He said the firm was not in the business of deep-discount trading.
But analysts say discount competitors have left Merrill feeling the heat and point to the fact that the new service will be accessible from the same sites used by discounters, including Netscape Communictaor's (NSCP) Netcenter and Microsoft Corp's (MSFT) new "portal" site.
Some discount brokers have already started offering limited research from Wall Street firms. E*Trade Group offers full-text, near real-time reports from BancBoston Robertson Stephens for $24.95 a month.
Maddy Weinstein, Merrill's senior vice president for strategic development, said he was not worried that people would use the firm's research for free and then execute trades elsewhere.
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Merrill Lynch
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