Stifel Financial Looks to Ascend Institutions’ Trading Lists (SF)

Following a recent merger with Thomas Weisel Partners, Stifel Financial (NYSE: SF) now has total research coverage of 1,143 companies. The firm has been pursuing an aggressive growth strategy for the past few years, where they sought to grow their coverage base, trading operations, research capabilities, and direct market access.

In a recent interview for Traders Magazine, Stifel Financial president and CEO, Ronald Kruszewski, thinks that they will now be able to leverage their whopping research segment to grab more brokers’ votes and “ascend institutions’ trading lists.”

"We had virtually no overlap in research," he said. "And so we would like to think that, at a minimum, if Weisel was getting five votes and we were getting five votes, on a combined basis we'd have 10."

Both Stifel and Weisel have focused on program trading and building algorithms over the past two years. The merger will result in combining the operations on both fronts, Kruszewski said.

To read more on Stifel’s impressive growth strategy, visit…

http://www.tradersmagazine.com/news/stifel-nicolaus-thomas-weisel-merger...