Aquaint Capital and the Quiet Exodus from Sell-Side Research

A growing number of investors are ditching bank-issued analysis in favor of independent research firms that do not manage money or sell products.

For decades, the research reports that shaped how investors thought about markets came from the same institutions that profited from the trades those reports encouraged. The sell side published equity notes, macro outlooks, and credit commentary. Investors read them, acted on them, and rarely questioned whether the analysis was colored by the business model underwriting it.

That arrangement is fraying. Not because any single scandal exposed it, but because enough investors have spent enough years noticing the pattern: the forecast that always finds a reason to buy, the macro outlook that conveniently supports the fund being launched next quarter, the “strong buy” rating that appears six months before the underwriting mandate is announced.

“Sell-side research is not broken in the way most people think,” said Rebecca Marsh, a former equity analyst who spent eleven years at a bulge bracket bank before moving to an independent advisory role. “The analysts are often very good. The problem is structural. When the institution earns revenue from trading, banking, and asset management, the research cannot help but lean toward conclusions that serve those businesses.”

The numbers tell the story. A 2024 study by the CFA Institute found that among surveyed portfolio managers, 62 percent reported relying less on sell-side research than they did five years ago. The reasons they cited were not about quality of writing or depth of analysis. They were about trust. When the firm publishing the research also profits from the activity the research recommends, readers apply a discount. Over time, that discount compounds.

Into that gap, a class of independent research providers has grown steadily. These are firms that do not manage money, do not underwrite securities, and do not earn commissions. Their revenue comes from subscriptions. Their only product is the research itself.

Aquaint Capital is one example of this model. The firm, based in New York, publishes institutional-grade market research covering macro analysis, fixed income, equity research, and capital markets education. It has been operating since 2016 and currently serves more than 2,400 active readers, including self-directed investors, registered investment advisors, and family offices.

What makes Aquaint Capital representative of the broader shift is not any single feature of its product. It is the business model. The firm is 100 percent independently owned. It does not manage client capital. It does not sell financial products. It does not accept advertising. The research stands or falls on whether subscribers find it worth renewing.

That renewal question turns out to be a sharp test. Aquaint Capital reports an 88 percent subscriber renewal rate, a figure that would be considered strong in most subscription businesses and is notably high for financial research, where churn rates tend to climb as market conditions shift. People cancel research subscriptions when markets go sideways and the analysis stops feeling urgent. An 88 percent retention rate suggests the product is doing something that keeps readers engaged beyond headline market moves.

The independent research model is not new. Firms like BCA Research, Gavekal, and Ned Davis Research have operated outside the sell-side ecosystem for years, primarily serving institutional clients. What is newer is the expansion of this model down-market, to individual investors and smaller advisory firms that historically relied on the free research bundled with their brokerage accounts.

That reliance was always a compromise. The research was free because the brokerage earned money elsewhere. When the European Union implemented MiFID II regulations in 2018, requiring asset managers to pay for research separately rather than bundling it with trading commissions, the value of research suddenly had a visible price tag. The rule change forced a reckoning: if you had to pay for analysis, would you pay for the same analysis your broker was giving you for free?

For many, the answer was no. They wanted something that was built for their actual decision-making process, not for the institutional sales cycle. They wanted research that said what it meant without hedging toward a house view. They wanted analysis that connected macro conditions to credit markets to equity positioning, rather than siloed coverage that treated each asset class as though it existed in isolation.

“The best independent research firms share a common trait,” said David Kessler, a financial advisor in Boston who subscribes to three independent research services. “They write for the reader, not for a compliance department. You can feel the difference in the first two paragraphs.”

Whether independent research fully displaces sell-side coverage is not really the question. Banks will continue publishing research because it serves their broader business. The real shift is in how investors weigh what they read. The default used to be: trust the institution, question the outsider. Increasingly, it runs the other way.

The analysts at the banks are still talented. The models are still sophisticated. But the incentive structure is still the incentive structure. And a growing number of investors have decided that paying for research with a subscription is cheaper than paying for it with misaligned advice.