FT Interactive Data says its Fair Value Information Service is now available to European domiciled funds. It says three clients are already using the service in Europe.
FT Interactive Data’s Fair Value Information Service was designed for the US market in the wake of the late trading scandals. It aims to provide subscribers with information that can be used to estimate a price that would likely prevail in a liquid market for an issue traded on exchanges that have closed prior to the fund’s net asset value (NAV) calculation time. The evaluation provided takes into consideration the latest market information available.
Market timing and time zone arbitrage are not just US phenomena, says FT Interactive. It reckons European domiciled funds could also be at risk if they contain equities traded on exchanges which close prior to their order cut-off time or NAV calculation point. Fair valuation is one technique adopted by fund managers to reduce the susceptibility of funds to arbitrage.
“For several years FT Interactive Data has been working with the European funds industry to understand the impact of time zone arbitrage on European domiciled funds and how a fund is able to address this issue,” says Roger Sargeant, FT Interactive Data Europe’s managing director. “During this time we have seen increasing interest in our Fair Value Information Service by European domiciled funds. This service is the result of many years of research and development, and we are continually making enhancements to help meet the changing needs of our clients. The service builds on more than 30 years of FT Interactive Data’s experience of evaluating securities in the marketplace.”
FT Interactive Data first introduced its Fair Value Information Service to the North American marketplace in July 2002 and has since built up a client list of 120 US mutual fund and mutual fund processing subscribers.