Northern Trust says it has launched a new risk management product for its institutional clients. The so-called Northern Trust Event Analyst aims to enable clients to select and monitor distinct classes of marketplace events and their impact on institutional asset portfolios.
“Event Analyst was successfully introduced to a select group of clients earlier in the year during a controlled roll-out, and is now broadly available to all Northern Trust institutional clients,” explains Jeff O’ Neill, Senior Vice President, Manager of Strategic Product Development at Northern Trust. “It’s a powerful risk management tool in the tradition of our other exception-based information delivery services we offer clients via Northern Trust Global Investor Passportsm.”
Northern Trust says economic uncertainty, volatile markets, and an unpredictable geopolitical environment have increased the institutional appetite for tools which enable them to manage the impact of events on the value of their investment portfolios. Event Analyst enables users to set volatility parameters according to securities, currencies, and market fluctuations, and it automatically notifies clients via email when these pre-determined parameters have been violated.
“Event Analyst makes me aware of something that is wrong in the portfolio, but it is more than just a warning,” says Robert Newland, Deputy Director and Chief Investment Officer for the $5.6 billion Indiana Teachers’ Retirement Fund. “Event Analyst helps us to stay on top of our many portfolios. It instantly elaborates on the impact of an event with holdings information, transaction history, event specific news, charts, graphs – everything I need to understand and respond quickly to a particular event that has impacted our portfolios.”
“With Event Analyst, our goal is to help clients spend their time interpreting events, rather than running around gathering data,” adds Matthew Tushman, Vice President and Event Analyst product manager at Northern Trust. “Clients demand concise, relevant information they can use to make sound decisions related to market exposure and portfolio performance, all in the context of the larger marketplace.”
For each security impacted, Event Analyst provides overall client exposure and historical performance information. The system also examines the impact of events on particular securities and industries, and provides the client with relevant benchmark reporting for that security and other large holdings.
“The biggest benefit is that we are in a position to get immediate notification in the event of a very volatile market event, such as an Enron or WorldCom situation,” says Newland. “And it helps me understand quickly what is actually going on in our portfolios within the context of the overall market.”