New fund screening tool for professional investors launched

A factor-based fund screening, search and comparison tool for professional investors has been launched today.

Style Analytics, a provider of factor-based portfolio and market analytics tools for investment professionals, launches what it has dubbed a "first-of-its-kind tool" in investment management for instant comparison of funds on a wide variety of metrics.

Style Analytics' products and services are designed to help institutional investors and investment managers determine which factor exposures impact portfolio risk and performance, including ESG.

'Green washing'
Using the Similyzer tool and other products with the Style Analytics range industry professionals can analyse markets, peers and portfolios and also highlight issues such as 'green-washing'. This where the tool can differentiate which ESG funds are valid in their green claims, amid the recent rush to this style of investment - particularly during the current covid-19 crisis.

Stephen Beinhacker, global head of manager research at SEI, said "Similyzer is a big time saver. It quickly and easily sheds an interesting light on managers' similarities and differences. Before this tool, it simply took too long to identify manager-specific attributes and now I can dig as deeply as I need to find gems of information."

Risk
The new Similyzer tool uses fund holdings to measure how similar thousands of investment vehicles are to one another, helping investors make detailed comparisons on factor exposures, historic performance, risk measures and more. 

Sebastien Roussotte, CEO of Style Analytics, said that Similyzer module gives both asset managers and asset owners valuable capabilities that he believes that they cannot get anywhere else.

"By providing a comparison on all the holdings-based attributes of interest -investment style, performance, and risk - the entire industry will benefit from Similyzer's fast and efficient presentation of fund similarity."

Asset managers can use Similyzer to identify uniquely differentiating aspects of their own funds, to assess all competitors' strengths and weaknesses and to examine crowding in equity styles, the company added. 

Asset owners and consultants can use Similyzer to assess differences in comparable funds, to find alternative funds and to enhance their initial and ongoing due-diligence. Ten early-adopter clients are currently using Similyzer to compare select funds with over 28,000 other funds in the Morningstar and eVestment universes. 

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