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Under the skin of the new qualitative investor

Unstructured data is everywhere. Here’s how you can consistently ingest, store and synthesise it – and why smart investors need to.

Today’s institutional investors are on the lookout for money-laden market opportunities, while expecting transparency in asset allocation rationale and exacting customisation to their needs.

Portfolio managers need to create more attractive and distinguishable investment products, more often.

And the ones that do, stand to win big.

By identifying thematic exposures, managers can leverage performance potential from market trends and innovation. Qualitative data is the bridge that can connect portfolio managers ideas to explainable, customizable and transparent thematic investment products.

But here’s the thing.

It’s costly (in time and money) and overly manual to make this work – in fact there’s an Insights Gap lying between thematic ideas and traditional fundamental and quantitative investment strategies.

That’s why successful portfolio managers today consistently leverage and harmonise unstructured data with their fundamental and quantitative analysis to close this Insights Gap.

But right now, the unstructured data research process is outdated. It’s holding you back from finding more relevant insights, more often (and making more money from more informed investment allocations).

So how can you retune the traditional mindset to get more visibility, value and clarity from the data lying out of sight?

The change in the world

You know qualitative data research can (and should) be done better. You’ve felt it.

It’s not just that your clients are demanding more tailored and nuanced solutions from you as an investment partner (although they are).

It’s because portfolio managers who are tee’d up for success in this world have a mandate for change. And the change is this…

Asset and wealth management is going granular and thematic. Uncovering deeper, more nuanced insights is no longer a nice-to-have – they now need to be integrated into the fabric of investment solutions.

The good news is we have the tools to do it – but we also need to ditch some of the older methods to make the most of them.

Unhook from manual

As an investor, your edge comes from more differentiated, transparent and explainable investment products that leverage key market trends and themes.

Unstructured/qualitative data insights provide the nuance and relevant data points that can enrich managers’ thematic understanding and meet investors’ demands – but to do that, we first need to overcome some challenges.

The first is to mine unstructured data quickly and automatically so it can be consumed and analysed at scale.

Manual research is becoming less and less effective at collecting data insights as the volume of unstructured data grows.

Portfolio managers that embrace an automated approach stand to collect more relevant data, faster.

At the same time, investment analysts are freed from trawling through countless pages of market trends and events in the hope of finding qualitative insights that mesh with your fundamental data.

Effectively integrating automation into your research lets you weigh, rank and score unstructured, qualitative data to traditional data sources – all essential for you to succeed in your next move…

Customise like Hell

The bar for the investment process is quickly moving from productised to customised.

Advisors used to be able to sell a few core products based on quantitative models or fundamental core company performance data.

As investors become more concerned about how their investments affect the world – with Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors emerging as major considerations – you need to allocate and reallocate accurately in light of their expectations.

Today, you’re competing on your ability to customise products to match each investor’s specific strategy – including thematic approaches.

And truly effective customisation comes from uncovering and leveraging the most granular aspects of investment criteria and thematic ideas. Harnessed consistently through automation, unstructured data is an enabler to make this happen.

To do that, you need more accurate evidence, fast, so you can rebalance your investors’ portfolios, calculate exposures to thematic trends and drive new product development.

And with fresh, relevant insights constantly flowing into your systems through automation, you’ll be able to customise to the nth degree for each and every client.

All set?

We’re CID. We help portfolio managers create more robust, informed and lucrative investment products for their clients, again and again.

Our Affinity platform lets asset and wealth managers automatically find, store and synthesize qualitative insights that enrich their investment strategies.

You can use Affinity to research new opportunities, make fast and accurate asset allocation and rebalancing decisions, and develop and sell new customised investment products faster.

It all starts with a new mindset. Ready?

Ready to start?

Let’s talk about what you need.

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