NEW YORK -- Lehman Brothers signed an agreement with Plexus Group to offer additional services to equity trading clients. Lehman will offer buy-side clients the Broker Edge Monitor, which provides execution data and ranks brokers on the quality of trading execution. Plexus' Pre/Post Trade Analysis, which gives independent data on the costs of rebalancing or liquidating portfolios, is also part of the agreement. The companies are exploring the development of proprietary trading products and system enhancements that will give Lehman clients a way to monitor and evaluate active trading.
Frontier Analytics offers AssetFinder upgrade free
SAN DIEGO -- Frontier Analytics Inc. released AssetFinder as an upgrade to AllocationMaster and provided the software to the current 20,000 users at no charge. The software is used to classify mutual funds into appropriate investment categories. AssetFinder has a database of 8,000 mutual funds that have been assigned to each asset class used in AllocationMaster. The database is searchable by mutual fund name, ticker symbol or asset class.
Capital Management survey looks at investing procedures
LOS ANGELES -- A survey by Capital Management Services of 400 institutional investors revealed that 43% of respondents reported using an internally developed system for compliance. BondEdge, Capital Management's fixed-income portfolio analytics system, used on a monthly basis for compliance and regulatory reporting by more than half of those surveyed, closely followed in popularity.
Fifty-four percent of survey respondents often use municipals in their portfolios, in addition to the typical mix of government and mortgage-backed securities and corporate bonds. Other popular fixed-income investments were: commercial mortgage-backed securities, 41%; high-yield bonds, 35%; non-dollar bonds, 18%; and convertibles, 15%.
The most widely used indexes are Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch for high-yield bonds and Salomon Brothers and J.P. Morgan for non-U.S. denominated bonds.
Only 23% of respondents reported having systems to measure value at risk at their firms.
The use of derivatives was equally split, with 48% of managers using interest rate swaps, futures caps/ floors, swaptions and options on futures; 52% said they did not use any derivatives.
TradeRoute routing, execution service links with brokerage
BOSTON -- AutEx will be linking its TradeRoute routing and execution reporting service with brokerage firm A.W. Bertsch Inc., allowing AutEx's institutional clients to route orders directly to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. A.W. Bertsch developed the technology with help from Javelin Technologies.
First Call to offer Internet bond data
BOSTON -- First Call Corp. plans to offer fixed-income contact and ownership data over the Internet on First Call BondWatch by the next quarter, a company spokeswoman said. The data will be updated monthly. Taxable and tax-exempt bonds will be covered, as well as ratings data.
IQ Financial releases trading software, signs global deal
NEW YORK -- IQ Financial Systems Inc. has released Trade IQ 2.6, a trading and financial processing software. According to the company, the software will allow global banks to increase trading volumes across a wider range of financial products. The system is fully automated to conduct transactions ranging from cash to derivatives, and the processing from deal capture through back office settlement and accounting. It is compliant with FASB-133 accounting standards and with the industry standard S.W.I.F.T. messaging format.
Salomon Smith Barney picks Geneva accounting software
SAN FRANCISCO -- Salomon Smith Barney Inc. Equity Prime Brokerage selected Advent Software's Geneva system for global portfolio accounting. The firm had used "a combination of systems" built over the last three years, said Sal Campo, managing director. Advent is the only global accounting system designed to give access to reports via Netscape and Internet Explorer. It gives information to investment professionals operating 24 hours a day in markets around the world.
