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The new thematic approach to generating alpha

Why thematic investing leads to better esg analysis

Thematic investing has Asset and Wealth Managers in a constant battle. You’re trying to find insights that help distinguish your investment products, cater to specific client needs, and generate alpha.

Yet these products depend on accurate, relevant, and integrated insights from unstructured qualitative data – a process that relies on manual research and is limited by the disparate nature of unstructured information.

And at the same time, the thematic space has become fiercely competitive – which means it’s never been more important (or harder) to stand out. Firms less well-resourced than the market leaders face a particularly difficult challenge to satisfy growing client demand for customised and alpha-generating portfolios.

Asset and Wealth Managers need a new approach to overcome this combination of overly manual processes, inaccurate results, and lack of customisation and transparency.

Affinity was designed to give thematic investors the tools to evolve thematic research investment beyond manual data collection.

The result:

Continuous and automatic qualitative data capture
Scoring to create thematic buckets of hyper-relevant information
Integrating quantitative, fundamental and qualitative insights for well-rounded thematic context
Comprehensive data crawling from across the web
A clear picture of how themes and events map onto relevant people and companies

Watch the short video below and see how Affinity works for yourself.

Illuminate your ESG factors

Your ESG implementation should inform the data sources you use. To do that you need a comprehensive and efficient screening process that lets you tap into a universe of clearly defined and relevant companies.

Themes allow a more granular and sophisticated approach to ESG. A thematic approach means portfolio managers can build up their understanding of individual ESG factors by extracting relevant insights from unstructured data sources on an array of niche topics— from data centre cooling and AI, to battery recycling and electric vehicles.

That way, you can build a portfolio with sufficient choice, liquidity, and risk diversification that matches your investors’ preferences. Crucially, you can act independently of the inconsistent and mismatched array of ESG assessments from other data providers.

By adding additional transparency, context, and explainability, Asset and Wealth Managers can ensure funds deliver on their promises—something that’s becoming more and more crucial as regulatory scrutiny tightens.

Affinity can help

We designed the Affinity platform to help Asset and Wealth Managers extract the best possible thematic insights from unstructured data.

When merged with your terminal’s structured and quantitative data, you’ll unlock clear, deep, and actionable results that guide your investment decisions.

Affinity’s AI web-crawler, API integration and insights hub makes it easy to capture, assess and act on comprehensive and relevant ESG insights, and wider market trends. If that sounds like something you need, we should talk.

Contact us