Blog Articles

FinTech Revolutionizing Managed Accounts - Part 6 Investors generally reference “alternatives” as investments that fall outside the two primary asset classes, equities and bonds. These investments can be as vanilla as options and currencies, or far more esoteric, like timber, collateralized debt obligations, or art.  The problem with such a broad classification system is many commonplace investment strategies are grouped with obscure asset classes when these strategies have more in common with...

FinTech Revolutionizing Managed Accounts - Part 5 Security indexes (or indices, depending where you are from) predate the 20th century and have been used as benchmarks for investment managers for many decades. Beginning in 1975 (or potentially as early as 1967), investors began using index funds as a way to passively invest in a subset of securities based on a clear set of rules, gaining broad market exposure while reducing costs. Over the last few decades, we have seen enormous growth, of...

FinTech Revolutionizing Managed Accounts - Part 4 Advisory clients can be an eccentric bunch, with varied demands and unconventional reasons behind them.  Whether your client has taken a firm stance against the perils of tobacco, the side effects of petroleum, or simply doesn’t want to invest in a specific state because that is where their ex-spouse is from, advisors are beholden to their client requests.  Fortunately advances in fintech make it easier to accommodate client requests, and take...

FinTech Revolutionizing Managed Accounts - Part 3 Hedge funds have long been mired of the world of Regulation D private placements, until now.  While several strategies fit well into the idea of yearlong lock ups, consolidated asset pools, and high fee structures, many alternative strategies operate in the everyday world of buying and selling publicly traded equities.  If these underlying equities are electronically traded, listed, and priced each second, then why the need for a private...

FinTech Revolutionizing Managed Accounts - Part 2Streamlined Investment Management Practices Advisors running several different client investment portfolios are faced with the burdensome task of constantly having to manage and even trade each of the portfolios on an on-going basis when they fall outside of allocation guidelines.  It used to be that each account had to be traded individually and advisors were faced with determining exactly what those allocation guidelines were and how sensitive...

FinTech Revolutionizing Managed Accounts - Part 1 Advances in FinTech mean you no longer have to wait for next day allocations and reporting for your unified managed accounts. After all, why is there a delay when the securities are electronically traded? SMArtXChange provides real-time sleeve level reporting on all investment strategies, combined with intra-day allocations and liquidations. The “real-time everything” also means we trade in real-time, whenever an investment manager indicates a...