Index Comparison and Performance Attribution
Custom Index Manager helps you navigate through a sea of options to steer your investments in the right direction. Portfolio managers encounter many challenges with index-related investing. These include comparing portfolio structures with indices, managing risk to an index, index-linked strategy and compliance testing, and portfolio trading driven by benchmark characteristics. We created the Custom Index Manager software to solve index-related tasks involving portfolio management and risk. To address these tasks, Custom Index Manager integrates: Robust portfolio analytics Visibility to index constituents Portfolio and index return analysis Many prominent fund groups and high-net-worth managers save time and avoid spreadsheet maintenance by using Custom Index Manager along with the Perform portfolio management and trading system.
Index Comparison and Performance Attribution Custom Index Manager enables fixed income managers to create index and portfolio analysis that is totalreturn-based. Delivering index bonds with portfolio tools gives portfolio managers a powerful way to assess risk and sources of return. CUSTOM B ENEFITS INDEX AT A MANAGER GLANCE Compare a portfolio to an index using factors CUSTOM such as INDEX effective MANAGER duration, maturity, and sector Assess portfolio risk using contribution CUSTOM INDEX to duration, MANAGER convexity, and other metrics Isolate components that contribute to portfolio total return and compare to corresponding index groups Managing Portfolios to Indices The combination of Custom Index Manager and Perform provides a unique value proposition for fixed income managers who are faced with challenges, such as: Managing to various tolerances around multiple benchmarks Index and portfolio averages drifting over time Executing strategy while trading Custom Index Manager allows reporting and analysis of multiple portfolios relative to multiple indices, and enables index-aware trading, compliance, and exception reporting. Understand return volatility by calculating ex-ante tracking error Actual security-level index data, not a proxy Calculate total return attribution considering portfolio transactions Extend your analysis using the builtin report writer
Whether you are managing one, hundreds, or thousands of portfolios, Custom Index Manager gives you the tools you need for a growing business. Explain and Predict Return Performance attribution lets you demonstrate the implementation of your strategy and explain the impact on performance Portfolio return results often have to be explained historically and projected prospectively, recognizing how portfolio performance differs from a benchmark. This requires detailing effects such as: Yield curve changes Spread changes Sector performance Custom Index Manager dissects and summarizes these interactions in attribution reports that clearly identify the various contributions to portfolio and index return. Use comparison graphs to visualize account structure and compare it to the relevant index. Custom Index Manager can also simulate index return in different rate shock environments for many indices. User-editable performance bucketing delivers the components and level of granularity that you require.
Integrated Solution The optimum implementation is a combination of historical index bonds and full portfolio management capabilities. That s exactly what Custom Index Manager and Perform provide. One can further extend the integration with credit analysis and research management software provided by Investortools, to achieve an integrated suite of fixed income functionality. Custom Index Manager can also integrate with existing in-house products and be customized to your specifications. Simple Data Delivery Custom Index Manager provides all the relevant index bonds with no additional manipulation required. Current and historical index data, yield curves, and seamless integration with portfolio management capabilities are all part of Custom Index Manager. Taxable and tax-exempt indices available from: Barclays Standard & Poor s Bank of America Merrill Lynch Users can also create and maintain their own customweighted, blended, or completely customized benchmarks. How to Get Custom Index Manager Like all Investortools software, Custom Index Manager is offered on a subscription basis with a thirty day rolling commitment. Contact Investortools for a short web-based or on-site demonstration. Contact Investortools at 630.553.0040, or visit www.invtools.com. invtools.com
For over 20 years, Investortools has provided software solutions for fixed income investment institutions and energy companies. Major products are Custom Index Manager for return attribution and index comparison, Smart for short term maturity portfolios, Perform for long term maturity portfolios, CreditScope credit analysis software and Energy Credit Manager for credit evaluation of energy customers and counterparties. Over two hundred firms currently use the company s systems. A BOUT I NVESTORTOOLS 100 Bridge Street Plaza, Yorkville, Illinois 60560 630.553.0040 www.invtools.com