With major Wall Street firms committed to paying $432 million over five years for independent stock research, part of their $1.4 billion settlement with regulators over misleading analysis, investorscan look forward to a lot more research. It’s more and more important for investors like us to have independent research, said Cheryl Royce, a member of the investment club Girls With Cash, whichmeets monthly in Manhattan to make stock picks. Any organization that convinces me of their integrity will get my attention.

TheStreet.com, a business news Web site, created Independent Research Group in November to sell stock research with a focus on small and medium-sized companies that have little or no following on Wall Street. At the end of June, Reuters Group which acquired Multex, a financial research firm, in February said it would sell stock research under the Reuters brand name to investment banks and brokerages. Also last month, Thomson Financial announced plans to publish In Context Reports, which will use data collected from more than 1,000 research shops to show investors how analysts stack up against their peers. Thomson, which publishes the First Call earnings estimates, will compare analysts’ earnings forecasts, stock recommendations and years of experience and will report whether any work for firms with a possible investment-banking conflict. Though independent stock research firms have always existed, just a small number of companies, including Standard & Poor’s, Value Line and Morningstar, have focused on individual investors. Most independent firms cater to large institutions like pension funds, hedge funds and university endowments and have sold their research for fees that range from $25,000 to more than $100,000 a year Now some of the independents are hoping to sell their research to Wall Street brokerages, which are required to hire an outside consultant who will choose at least three independent research firms. Thomas White, chairman of Global Capital Institute, an independent research firm, formed a consortium called Best Independent Research with four similar firms in December in hopes of getting some of the new business. We did not have a way to deal directly with individuals before; people didn’t want to pay for research, said White, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley who is also president of the consortium. With a growing market for stock research, research firms already focused on individual investors are expanding their services. Standard & Poor’s, a unit of McGraw-Hill, plans to add 10 analysts in the next year and is increasing by 300 the number of stocks it covers, aiming to offer research on 1,500 companies. With the Wall Street settlement, there’s a rising demand for good- quality independent research, said Kenneth Shea, managing director of global equity research for S&P. Morningstar, which is best known for its mutual fund research and ratings, began offering stock analysis five years ago. Its 30 analysts cover about 1,000 stocks, and in May, Morningstar added data on 7,000 equities to its Web site. Morningstar also plans to add 10 more analysts this year to the 30 who do stock research. Zacks Investment Research, based in Chicago, tracks earnings estimates and data on 8,600 companies. Zacks offers in-depth stock reports on 700 companies and plans to expand that to 2,400 companies. ValueLine, which has long focused on providing independent research to individuals, offers analysis and investment recommendations on about 8,300 stocks and has three new newsletters on stocks and mutual funds.