Came across this article... I love subscribing to FT Money. Do you have thoughts on the traditional / new model? Article below 

Eoin Treacy's view

Thank you for your support, kind words and this article which as you point out represents a significant change for the research business and particularly in Europe. Here is a section:

2. What’s changing?
European regulators’ rewrite of their financial rule book known as MiFID II comes into force in January 2018. Among its changes, it says the buffet of services attached to trading now must be bought and sold as individual pieces.

And 

4. What will the new system look like?
Active negotiations are going on between brokers and the asset managers and hedge funds who are their clients. Alliance Bernstein LP has quoted smaller firms about $150,000 a year for two or more fund managers to access reports and other services. Nomura Holdings Inc. has proposed charging as much as 120,000 euros ($137,000) a year for access to favorite analysts in an all-inclusive "premium offering." That’s the same price as Credit Agricole SA’s most expensive package. Money managers have been quoted $50,000 for a basic package from JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s fixed-income analysts; Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG have pitched a metered, “pay as you go” approach for some investors. 
In the U.K., regulators said they will allow trial periods during which fund managers can receive research for free for up to three months.

5. Are fund managers going to pay?
Yes. The question is how much. Across the industry, asset managers are taking a hard look at the quality of stock and bond research they receive to determine what is worth paying for. Firms such as Woodford Investment Management, M&G Investments and Jupiter Fund Management Plc are among those that plan to pay for research out of their own profits, while other fund managers intend to continue to pass costs on to their investors in a more transparent way than in the past.

Investment research is as multi-faceted discipline that has a number of idiosyncrasies. For example, the perception of value is often as much about the quality of the calls as it is about the manner in which they are delivered and the personality of who is making them. 

There is likely going to be an increasingly wide gulf between the kinds of reports which are written. On the one hand, there will be purely factual reporting which are already being written by machines, on the other there will be thought pieces and what is for all intents and purposes editorial. 
One of the primary issues analysts have with saying what they think is career risk. I believe this is one of the least appreciated factors within the financial markets and is the primary benefit of independent research. I don’t see anything in the new regulations that interferes with the built-in motivation to tell people what they want to hear. After-all one of the oldest adages in the financial industry is that the greatest sin is to be wrong on your own. 

FullerTreacyMoney does not benefit to any measurable extent from soft dollar agreements with banks. We don’t charge enough for that, so the imposition of the MIFID II regulations do not represent a threat to our business model. On the other hand, they do represent an opportunity because the cost of generating investment research will be more transparent which creates a more level playing field. 

Nevertheless, I believe it would be rather naïve to think investors will move en masse away from the providers of research they find value in currently. The challenge as always is ensuring our brand gets in front of as many eyes as possible and in that regard our subscribers have always been our greatest resource. Please invite a friend into our community.