Infiniti Capital today announced the live launch of its Infiniti Analytics Suite (IAS) which has been in development for the past 18 months. The IAS is a portfolio modeling and analysis software package for hedge and mutual funds. Infiniti Capital has used the system internally since early 2005.
The IAS is designed to achieve the Post Modern Portfolio Theory objectives of improving investor returns and reducing down side risk. The system gives faster, easier and more flexible access to intuitive, meaningful portfolio analysis. Thereby, allowing for greater time to be spent interpreting outputs and less time trying to get them.
The software has been in Beta testing for the past 4 months with a test group of 200 people and the feedback thus far has been very positive says IAS project originator and Infiniti CIO, Peter Urbani. This package has been built by portfolio managers for portfolio managers and does not suffer the operational difficulties of most other larger packages which are primarily accounting systems with a portfolio module added on as an afterthought. The IAS is designed purely and simply to allow portfolio managers to build better portfolios and to manage their risk quickly and easily. Ultimately it is designed to help save time and money through more effective risk monitoring.
Infiniti found that working as a Hedge Fund of Funds (FoF) manager, we needed a better way to filter and amass data to build our portfolios. In particular, we needed a system that would take account of the nonlinearities inherent in hedge funds and be able limit the downside risks. Our frustrations with using existing available modeling systems really forced us to build our own.
Time is the ultimate luxury in todays fast paced world where portfolio managers are swamped by data: it is not uncommon for a portfolio manager to receive up to 500 emails daily, all with attachments and attend several meetings and presentations. All of this leaves little time for them to sit still and think about ways to improve the performance or risk characteristics of their portfolio; which is what they are actually paid for, says Urbani.
Modeling portfolios in spreadsheet packages such as Excel remains widespread but is time consuming and dangerous from an error perspective. Nor is the statistical library of Excel up to the demands of the modern portfolio. Put simply, Excel does not cut it anymore as a data system for high-end portfolio managers.
D.C.