Reuters plans to expand stock coverage

Dan Burns, financial markets editor for the Americas for Reuters, sent out the following to the staff:

Dayan Candappa recently described how winning news teams organize themselves around both stalwart defensive and dynamic offensive strategies. Dayan added that he, David Gaffen and I had begun discussing with the U.S. stock market team how we could improve our offense on stock market coverage without sacrificing the key defensive role the team plays in ensuring customers do not miss major developments in the world’s most important equity market.

The conversation centered on how the team could break more corporate news from within the market, using outsized moves in stock prices and volumes as tip offs that something newsworthy is afoot. We also focused how we can respond to these before the competition. After recent discussions with the team, and melding its ideas with ours, we can now report our next steps.

The New Stocks Team

We plan to expand the U.S. stocks team in the weeks ahead, roughly doubling its size in the United States from the current four full-time members.

We plan to make more of the team’s focus be the pursuit of stories around so-called hot stocks – those shares that take a sudden move up or down or are simply far more active than normal.

New Leadership Structure

This new structure will require a change in roles for some current EICs:

• David Gaffen will become EIC, Global Markets and Reporting Projects

o   David will oversee our day-to-day coverage of the bond and currency markets and production of the daily global markets report

o   More importantly, he will spearhead data-driven reporting projects centered on the region’s financial markets

o   As my chief deputy, David will also act as Financial Markets Editor, Americas, in times of my absence

• Jennifer Ablan will become EIC, Investments and Strategic Investors

o   Jennifer will be responsible for our coverage of investment flows and the key buyside players and institutions making market-moving investment calls

Additionally, we will be posting a new leadership position to sharpen our focus on company-specific stock activity.

• Wall Street Editor

o   This individual will be principally responsible for our new stock market coverage and for our reporting on equity investing more broadly, a vital coverage area for our wealth management clients

Successfully executed, these changes will defend our important franchise in the coverage of the headline activity in the U.S. stock market and significantly extend our company news coverage through the lens of unusual market activity (aka, our new Offensive game plan).