Barclays Asking $455,000 Per Year For Research Tests Market Valuation System

When Barclays recently rolled out its new research pricing platform, which is priced at $455,000 per year for the "gold" package, it highlighted how material changes are befalling the institutional investment research community at a time when brokerage commissions had already been falling. The market impact is unclear. Will the slippery slope of regulators mandating that bank brokerage trading commissions be separated from brokerage research lead to more or less independent research?

With less than 1% of bank research being read and examples of conflicts around every corner, is brokerage research worth $455,000?

What is taking place in the research industry right now provides a real-world education into how...