BEAVERTON, Ore. - Micropal, Boston, added a style analysis module to its AIM performance measurement and asset allocation software. AIM provides portfolio analysis and optimization services.
The addition reduces the need for managers and institutions to mix software from different companies that use different formats, different operating systems, different methodologies or different data, said David Masters, a senior fund analyst at Micropal.
Two key additional functions in AIM are performance comparison and asset allocation. The performance comparison function helps compare investment skills with competitors, communicate ideas, enhance client reporting and analyze market trends.
With its asset allocation module, users can create efficient portfolios, conduct stress tests on selected portfolio mixes, and forecast investment returns on capital for investment scenarios.
BondVu reaches 1,000 clients
LOS ANGELES - BondVu, providing data in real-time for single-security analysis, now has more than 1,000 clients, according to officials with Capital Management Sciences, Los Angeles.
The product was first offered earlier this year.
BondVu costs $160 a month for a single user, but the per user cost declines sharply as the number of users at a site increases.
The data service provides information on 850,000 U.S. taxable fixed-income securities. It offers search capability on up to 50 bond attributes.
The new version of BondVu, version 1.6, values portfolios so that holdings can be monitored using security prices that are repriced in real-time.
Profiles on CD-ROM
WASHINGTON - The Investor Responsibility Research Center's Environmental Information Service is providing corporate environmental profiles on CD-ROM.
The CD has full-text search capability. Investment and pension fund managers can use it to compare and evaluate the environmental performance of leading U.S. companies on an individual or industry group basis. It also can group companies into specialized sets.
The IRRC's environmental service provides six-year environmental performance trend data on 1,500 companies, and environmental profiles for companies in the S&P 500 index.
The profiles include quantitative environmental performance data and measures, as well as qualitative information about companies' environmental management systems, policies and practices.
The CD includes information from 10-K securities filings of S&P 500 companies. The information summarizes disclosed environmental liability information and a current environmental events affecting each company.
For more information contact John McMahon at IRRC at (202)833-0700.
Asian firm uses First Call
BOSTON - ABN AMRO Hoare Govett Asia is delivering its research reports electronically through First Call Research Direct. ABN AMRO is a large Asian brokerage firm.
For further information, contact Faye Fardshisheh at First Call Inc., Boston, at (617) 856-1158.
Dow Jones gets The BEAST
NEW YORK - Dow Jones Markets, New York, will begin distributing The BEAST next year over Dow Jones electronic desktop environments.
The BEAST, an analytical engine designed to determine derivative values in real time, recently exceeded 20,000 calculations per second.
Dow Jones Markets is distributing The BEAST as a result of an exclusive partnership with CastleNet L.L.C., New York.
The BEAST will be incorporated into the new Internet-Protocol-based desktop being developed by Dow Jones Markets, as well as into its next generation of 32-bit Microsoft Windows NT workstations.
In the future, transaction capabilities will be integrated into Dow Jones' standard desktop and workstation environments.
For further information, contact Brian Ek at Dow Jones Markets at (212) 416-3782.
'Promising' technologies eyed
NEW YORK - A six-member scientific advisory board has been formed to identify the most promising financial technologies now emerging, and to develop their practical applications for portfolio management and trading. The group was put together by Investment Technology Group Inc. of New York, which provides technology-based equity trading and transaction services.
Chairman of the new board is Andrew Lo, Harris & Harris Group professor and director of the laboratory for financial engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Other members of the board: Ian Domowitz, economics professor at Northwestern University; Bruce Lehmann, economics and finance professor at the University of California at San Diego; Ananth Madhavan, finance and business economics professor at the University of Southern California; Craig MacKinlay, professor of finance at University of Pennsylvania; Sanjay Srivastava, alumni professor of economics and finance at Carnegie-Mellon University graduate school of industrial administration.
