CNNMoney.com – When Keith McCullough left his hedge fund job last October to start an independent research company, it may have seemed like a curious move. Fourteen months, a highly prescient call on the market crash, and several key hires from top hedge funds later, McCullough’s company, Research Edge LLC, is forming a partnership with the institutional brokerage division of LaBranche & Co. (LAB) that will see LaBranche process actual trades for its clients based on Research Edge’s research.
The partnership will allow customers of LaBranche Financial Services LLC, including hedge funds, to get access to Research Edge research and immediately trade on that research through LaBranche. Existing customers that are clients of both LaBranche and Research Edge would automatically be able to use LaBranche for the trades, and LaBranche will have a team dedicated to pitching Research Edge to its other clients. LaBranche customers who pay for Research Edge research will be the only LaBranche clients who can act on that research. Neither company would comment on financial terms of the deal.
