Established US and European brokers were ranked highest for equity trading quality in financial consultancy Greenwich Associates' 2010 quality leaders survey.
Greenwich cited Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley as the top four banks for equity trading quality in the US, while Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and UBS were rated as the best equity trading brokers in Europe.
The survey identified Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan and Sanford C Bernstein as providing the highest quality service in US equity sales. Greenwich said Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley had been recognised for the quality of their European equity sales service.
The survey was based on interviews with large corporate and institutional clients between December 2009 and March 2010. In the US, 286 US equity traders were questioned about the equities trading services they receive from their brokers in the US. In Europe, 224 portfolio managers and 183 traders at predominantly UK and continental European institutions were asked about the research, sales and trading services they receive from their brokers.
Respondents were specifically asked to name the sell-side providers they use, provide the proportion of their business allocated to each provider and rate the quality of service delivered by each provider. These evaluations were then aggregated into a ”general quality inspection' score to determine overall quality leaders. Equity trading quality is a statistical measure of the perceived trading quality/capabilities offered to institutional investors.
Greenwich also assessed sell-side firms on their abilities in other areas, including fixed income, derivatives trading and foreign exchange, as well as in other geographies including Asia and Japan. Across all categories, Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank were named overall Greenwich quality leaders, recognised in 14 and 13 regional and product categories respectively. J.P. Morgan and Bank of America Merrill Lynch followed with 12 and 10 product categories respectively.