TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - Mobius Group Inc. has come out with an investment style analysis tool that also measures downside risk of money manager portfolios.
Mobius, Triangle Park, N.C., is the maker of the M-Search database software used in making manager searches. Mobius' style analysis software, Style Analysis Plus, is an option of M-Search.
Typically, the standard deviation of a portfolio is used to approximate the degree of risk a manager will take. When the standard deviation is used as a measure of risk, all volatility around the mean is measured as risk.
An alternate measure of risk, downside risk analysis, determines a manager's deviations below some minimal acceptable return.
Downside analysis allows non-normally distributed returns to be analyzed more effectively, according to Jay A. Kimple, a vice president with Mobius. Downside risk measurement is critical, he said, because most investors are more concerned with downside risk than upside excess return.
Style Analysis Plus also lets users build their own models for style analysis and includes features to validate the quality of those models.
Style Analysis Plus is the only way investment professionals can get all of the M-Search data, style analysis and downside risk analysis from a single source, according to Bob Padgette, Mobius Group president.
All current M-Search subscribers will have access to Style Analysis Plus free of charge until the release of second quarter data. The annual license fee for Style Analysis Plus is $4,000.
For more information, contact Mobius at (800) 662-4874.
AEGON licenses PAM
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - AEGON USA Inc., Cedar Rapids, has licensed PAM for Securities portfolio accounting and management system software for its fixed-income and equities portfolios.
PAM is a product of Princeton Financial Systems, Princeton, N.J.
AEGON USA selected PAM after a three-week evaluation of various software products. "We felt that a better approach was to bypass the traditional RFP process and move quickly to the testing phase, " said Dave Carney, chief financial officer at AEGON USA Investment Management Inc.
"We developed a series of test scripts that used our data to test specific functionality. The results of the tests, coupled with solid references from other users, helped us to make the decision to go with Princeton's PAM for Securities," said Mr. Carney.
The Windows NT client/server-based PAM will replace a legacy mainframe system at AEGON USA. AEGON USA is the U.S. subsidiary of Netherlands-based AEGON N.V.
For further information, contact Gordon Gacek at Princeton Financial Systems, (609) 987-2400.
Montgomery taps Telesphere
SAN FRANCISCO - The investment banking and brokerage firm Montgomery Securities, San Francisco, has signed an agreement to use Telesphere Global Ticker, a real-time pricing and descriptive information tool.
Montgomery Securities will use Global Ticker to support daily trading and sales activities in its Boston, New York and San Francisco offices.
"Montgomery Securities had an opportunity to thoroughly test Telesphere's real-time data services in our proprietary applications," said James Yee, principal and chief information officer of Montgomery. "We are pleased that Telesphere's speed, reliability and thorough data coverage will now be available to more of our traders."
Montgomery Securities will receive Global Ticker through Telesphere's Triarch 2000 interface, a software platform. For more information, contact Clare A. Reed at Telesphere, (212) 487-2848.
ITG sees net earnings rise 20%
NEW YORK - Investment Technology Group Inc., New York, announced an increase of $1.1 million or 20% in net earnings for the three months ended March 28 from the same period last year. ITG provides equity trading services and transaction research to institutional investors and brokers.
