ZeroHedge Launches Online Research Platform

Interesting goings on at ZeroHedge. The have launched an online research platform,the Distributed Analysis and Research Portfolio Aggregator (DARPA), that will allow anyone to post research write ups.

"We will provide a platform where anyone and everyone will be able to present sophisticated, bottom-up, fundamentally driven theses, analyses and write-ups, in very much the same way that traditional analysts present research ideas," writes ZeroHedge.

ZeroHedge states that 30% of its visitors are originate from major financial institutions: investment banks, traditional asset managers, hedge funds, and others. This is probably accurate and is in line with EPJ visitor traffic sources.Writes ZeroHedge:

Therefore the attraction of a DAPRA concept will be twofold:

i) to share one's top ideas with the key decision-makers of the financial community, and

ii) to have one's analytical talents noticed by the key portfolio managers. Expanding on this idea, we will soon develop a "marketplace" for research ideas, where research requests can be targeted to specific authors, and where DARPA analysts with established reputations can offer their analytical services to assorted portfolio managers.

Once we have a sizable cadre of DARPA members, we will streamline the rolodex and open it up to consultancy requests by asset managers for any of the thousands of registered Zero Hedge users who have proven their analytical skills on DARPA.

In essence, we have two main goals with DARPA:

i) to make obsolete the traditional rating agency model, by replacing it with a fully distributed, peer-rated, democratic research platform, and

ii) to provide an a la carte analyst/portfolio manager/trader talent retention service. If, for example, fund manager X wants a research write up on any number of ideas in, i.e., the energy space, DARPA will provide an existing inventory of top rated energy industry contributors. Such retention could be either temporary, in the form of a consultancy agreement, or permanent, as a full-time hire.

Between DARPA and Kaching the investment research world is about to change significantly.