Indexing Claims Another Boutique Research Firm With Buckingham Closure

Buckingham Research Group said Tuesday that it will wind down the firm by April 30, citing “profound and rapid changes in the equity research and money management businesses over the past few years,” according to an email message to clients from the firm’s chief executive Joseph Amaturo.

Buckingham, with about 50 staff, is the latest research provider to shutter, or reduce the scope of its coverage, as a result of the tidal wave of passive, index investments and ETFs that have swamped traditional, active management. Late last year, Macquarie Group Ltd. cut about 100 equities jobs in New York and London. Deutsche Bank laid off thousands last year. Evercore Inc. shut down the European trading arm of its ISI unit in early 2018, on the heels of the introduction of the European Union’s revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, known as MiFID II, that sparked complaints about surging costs in the industry.