As noted by Wall Street & Technology and other outlets, global brokerage and investment banking firm Morgan Stanley will acquire the risk management analytics firm Barra for $816.4 million or $41 per share, bringing into its own fold the capabilities of one of the leading value-add sources of financial content. Since the decline of broker research as a distinguishing factor in providing services to investment banking and brokerage and the subsequent pressure on trade execution margins, financial firms have been challenged to find new twists to their own value-add equations. The acquisition of Barra not only provides Morgan Stanley with an answer to that problem, it also places into question the long-term positioning of financial content vendors selling solutions to major financial firms that give them efficiencies but not a unique market advantage. With communications firms such as Radianz positioning themselves as financial content distributors and financial firms striving to provide more unique content services on the front end of their retail and institutional sales platforms, it appears as if financial content vendors find themselves caught in the middle of an ongoing squeeze that may not ease up any time soon.