WALTHAM, Mass. - Officers and directors of small-capitalization companies showed themselves bullish at the end of May on small-cap stocks, a new insider trading database of indexes on the Internet revealed.
The information came from a new Disclosure Inc. series of insider trading indexes.
Called Insider Indexes, Disclosure uses proprietary methodology that weights the value of each transaction by the executive's rank within the company, the volume of the trade and stipulations surrounding the executive's stock options package.
"Insider sentiment for small-capitalization stocks reflects a bullish outlook," said Craig Columbus, Disclosure director of ownership research.
The indexes use a relative range of 100, the most bullish, to -100, the most bearish. The small-cap index was positive on May 23 at 25. That is the highest it has been since September, when it was 38.
Insiders were positive on small-cap stocks back then when they perceived small-cap stock prices as relatively cheap following a correction in that market in July 1996.
The indexes aggregate some 5,000 weekly insider SEC filings through the weighting system. Disclosure officials say the new product offers investment professionals a sophisticated method for evaluating broad insider sentiment across market categories.
The new indexes gauge executive sentiment across five market capitalizations, 11 sectors, 46 industries and six geographic regions.
The information is available over Disclosure's Global Access site at www.disclosure.com/dga.
More information may be obtained by contacting Mr. Columbus at Disclosure at (301) 215-6028.
Portfolio Insight launched
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. - Standard & Poor's Compustat, Englewood, launched Portfolio Insight, software that integrates Compustat data and Internet technology.
It gives portfolio managers an integrated tool to allocate assets, research and select securities, manage risk, analyze portfolio characteristics, watch the market in real time and produce presentations for clients.
Portfolio managers can use the software to load holdings from their accounting system, said Steve Belmear, a market manager and lead developer for Portfolio Insight.
It also gives portfolio managers the tools to evaluate market measures, such as beta, price-to-book, market capitalization, return on equity and other key ratios across portfolios or against indexes, he said.
For more information contact Nancy Hallowell at Standard & Poor's, (303) 721-4651.
BankBoston picks Telesphere
LONDON - The London office of BankBoston, formerly the First National Bank of Boston, will use Telesphere's Global Pricing service for portfolio valuations.
"We decided on Telesphere because they offered the best solution for our needs and furthermore, proved very cost effective," said Tim Bower, senior international systems officer with BankBoston in London.
Global Pricing provides intraday prices and other financial data for more than 560,000 securities from more than 600 stock and commodity exchanges and key market makers.
More information my be obtained by contacting Clare Reed at Telesphere Corp., New York, (212) 689-8225.
Princeton system upgraded
PRINCETON, N.J. - Princeton Financial Systems, Princeton, added features to its investment management and accounting system for mutual fund and insurance separate account managers.
Princeton's new release has a multiclass share function that enables fund managers to allocate income, expenses, gains and losses to individual classes within a fund. It also has faster daily processing and an improved general ledger.
The latest release also includes new Canadian accounting, tax and reporting features.
Regions Bank taps I.M.S.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Regions Bank, Birmingham, decided to use INDATA's I.M.S. for Windows to provide performance reports to a number of their institutional clients.
"Our money mangers needed a way to calculate investment performance on the accounts for which we do not serve as custodian," said Ken Alderman, Regions Bank senior vice president and senior trust investment officer. "We went with I.M.S. for Windows based on INDATA's obvious strength in delivering timely and accurate performance measurement and peer group information."
Regions Bank's I.M.S. for Windows system was scheduled to be in full operation by the end of May. The system will be installed in the bank's Birmingham office, where its trust investment group is centered. The bank's portfolio managers, located in several different offices, will have access to the system.
Region's Trust Investment Group manages $3.4 billion in discretionary assets.
Vanbever is SWIFT CFO
BRUSSELS - Francis Vanbever was appointed chief financial officer of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.
Mr. Vanbever succeeds Geoffrey Dunn, who is leaving SWIFT to serve as chief financial officer for Global One, the international telecommunications consortium formed by Sprint, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom.
Mr. Vanbever had been director of financial planning and analysis with SWIFT in 1996.
