RALEIGH – Raleigh is among the top five contenders for the massive Amazon HQ2 project, according to a new study from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

However, Bank of America won’t disclose details of the analysis, which was first reported by Business Insider.

Melissa Anchan, who handles media relations for research analysts at the firm, said the report’s details are for clients.

“Our equity research is held for clients so we are not permitted to share it with the press,” she said via email. “Sorry I can’t help at this time.”

The news comes as Amazon confirmed Monday that meetings have begun with officials from the 20 metro areas named as finalists.

“Amazon is working with each HQ2 candidate city to dive deeper on their proposals and share additional information about the company’s plans. We’re excited to visit each location and talk about how HQ2 could benefit our employees and the local community,” Amazon said in a statement Monday after The Washington Post reported meetings with local officials.

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Business Insider reported Monday that the new study ranks Raleigh along with Atlanta, Boston, Denver and Washington, D.C. as the best bets among the 20 finalists as previously announced by Amazon.

The five were listed alphabetically and “not ranked otherwise,” the news site reported.

Also, the D.C. site ranking includes Montgomery County in Maryland and Northern Virginia.

It’s not clear in the BofA analysis for Raleigh includes the entire Triangle region.

However, Amazon has said the entire Triangle, which submitted multiple bids from a joint regional task force, is under consideration. The final 20 from nearly 240 bids were announced in January.

The Triangle has ranked highly and quite low in various studies and surveys since the final 20 were disclosed.

At stake: As many as 50,000 jobs and billions of dollars in investment by the ecommerce giant.

According to Business Insider, the BofA analysis considered two factors:

How closely each city mirrors Seattle

How attractive the city’s financial, employment, education, business, housing, transportation, and innovation sectors are.

The data from those two considerations was used to reach a composite score.

Read more at Business Insider.