First Coverage Announces 5th Annual Top Performer Rankings for North America

BOSTON, Feb. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- First Coverage, Inc., a global leader in Alpha Capture technology released today its fifth annual rankings recognizing the top performers in institutional equity sales, sell-side firms and independent research providers worldwide. The 2010 Top Performers rank among the leading institutional experts, outperforming their peers at over 350 sell-side firms on the First Coverage platform.

John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC (JTVIR), a fundamental research provider for commodities as well as metals and forest products sectors, is our number one ranked firm covering US equities. "We emphasized long positions in diversified mines and other manufacturing companies benefiting from global economic recovery in 2010. We participate in First Coverage because its platform provides an independent verification of our 'alpha' communicated to audiences important to us," said John Tumazos, CEO at JTVIR.

Our award for the top ranked firm covering Canadian Equities in 2010 goes to TD Securities. Headquartered in Toronto, and covering over 280 companies across Canada, TD Securities was also one of our top 10 ranked international firms in 2009. "This result really speaks to the core strengths of TD Securities where we have a top tier research group and an entrepreneurial sales and trading team capable of leveraging their work," said Tim Wiggan, Managing Director, Institutional Equities at TD Securities.

The First Coverage rankings are derived from hundreds of thousands of actionable sell-side trade ideas communicated by thousands of sales people at hundreds of firms that participated on the First Coverage alpha capture system and represent the only completely objective evaluation of the sell-side. In the past year alone, overall contributor participation has grown by over 200% with coverage throughout North America, Europe and most recently Asia.

"By most accounts, 2010 was a challenging year for stock picking given the macro events that impacted the markets for much of the year," said Roland Beaulieu, CEO and President of First Coverage. "However, a number of high quality research firms and sales people were able to dramatically outperform their respective benchmarks and peers, and we're happy to announce John Tumazos Very Independent Research as our Top Ranked U.S. Firm in 2010, and TD Securities as our Top Ranked Canadian Firm for 2010. With a growing community of 350 participating research firms globally, cracking our Top 10 Rankings for the year is an impressive honor and very meaningful to the Buy Side clients in First Coverage who were able to receive and utilize their research ideas in a more efficient manner."

For more information or a complete list of rankings, including best long and short ideas, most consistent performers, and industry top performers, e-mail: [email protected].

In addition to providing a world-class alpha-capture platform, First Coverage offers filtered mainstream news, blogs, research and other communications based on the individual interests of buy-side users. The First Coverage Market Sentiment Index, a proprietary indicator derived from actionable sell-side trade ideas sent by the sell-side to their buy-side clients over the First Coverage platform, is syndicated in Barron's weekly and available live on Bloomberg terminals.

About First Coverage, Inc.

Established in 2006 by the founders of First Call and StreetEvents, First Coverage provides a web-based technology, which was developed in collaboration with both the buy-side and sell-side to help money managers more efficiently generate alpha by eliminating the "noise" that they encounter on a daily basis, allowing them to focus on the people and information that matter most to their holdings. The firm's clients comprise large money managers, including Top Ten firms, hedge funds and pension plans, which direct trillions of dollars in assets under management and have access to sentiment analyses of "The Street" and the media as well as the highest-conviction, actionable recommendations submitted to First Coverage by thousands of sell-side participants, who consistently have outperformed the benchmarks. For more information, visit www.FirstCoverage.com.

SOURCE First Coverage, Inc.