Investools partners again
Supplying investors information through online brokerages and Web sites is Investools' game, and it signs another partner, E*Trade.
The partnership marks the latest deal for Investools as it looks to expand its information-supplying relationship with other online brokerage firms and Web sites.
"We wanted to complement our array of great information with their newsletters, which are complementary to our offerings," said Veronica Lentfer, vice president of alliance programs for E*Trade.
Investools will have a link from the E*Trade site and handle all the billing for its fee-based services. Lentfer declined to disclose the financial terms of the arrangement.
Under this agreement, Investools will provide financial newsletters, research reports, and basic stock screening that allows users to enter criteria to search for stocks that fit their investment strategy.
The offering will include 25 newsletters and research publications, from Zacks Investment Research to Standard & Poor's Stock Reports. These reports, which can be browsed separately or searched by ticker symbol or company name, will cost 25 cents to $25 per publication.
"E*Trade represents a source of distribution for us and we're an added value for them," said Laird Foshay, president and founder of Investools. "This integrating of the two Web sites is definitely the direction we're heading."
He declined, however, to speculate on the potential size of the business.
The research company is seeking to land similar deals with other online brokerage firms after having developed the capability last December to offer stock screenings at its own site. Foshay said the Investools site offers more sophisticated stock screening capability but the research publications will largely be the same.
Another online brokerage offering similar research services is Quote.Com. The financial service offers research reports from Morning Star, IPO Maven, and Standard & Poor's, for example.
But Forshay contended that his service has more bells and whistles. "Quote.Com dominates the area of quotes and charts in terms of cobranding with other sites. Our greatest strength is value-added information, which is advisory in nature."
But executives with Quote.Com contend that while Investools has "good niche products," it does not offer the one-stop content selection of its service.
"We're working on providing comprehensive research products together with several brokerages," said Dion Lim, director of business development for Quote.Com. He added that the quote-providing relationship his company has with E*Trade does not exclude it from offering research services to the online brokerage in the future.