Morningstar Rolls Out New Research Platform: Tech Roundup

What You Need to Know

Morningstar has replaced Morningstar Premium with Morningstar Investor, an enhanced investment research tool for investors.
Sanctuary Wealth launched a customized alternative investments platform for its partner firms.
Sanjay Sharma was appointed by SEI to lead its Private Banking business division.

Morningstar has launched Morningstar Investor, an enhanced investment research platform for individual investors, that is replacing Morningstar Premium, it said Thursday.

The platform provides investors with a “more powerful connection between an individual’s portfolio” and Morningstar’s data, research and ratings, the research firm added.

“Morningstar Investor makes it easier for investors to understand what they own, monitor the market, and personalize their investment strategies,” it explained.

It features new tools to meet the increased demand for personalization but also retains many of the features that users liked about Morningstar Premium, according to Adley Bowden, head of individual investor for Wealth Management Solutions at Morningstar.

Sanctuary’s New Customized Alternative Platform

Sanctuary Wealth introduced a customized alternative investments platform for its partner firms that it said Tuesday “streamlines the complexities of managing alternative investments across their full investment life-cycle.”

This makes Sanctuary the “first hybrid RIA to offer this kind of digital access to alternative investments, where everything has been sourced and vetted by our own team rather than outsourced to a third-party vendor,” according to CEO and founder Jim Dickson.

“We believe this will be a real game-changer for our advisor partners and their clients, particularly in the current environment where traditional investments have been volatile,” Dickson said in a statement.

Sanctuary Wealth’s network now includes partner firms across 20 states with over $22 billion in assets under advisement.

SEI Selects Sanjay Sharma to Head Private Banking

Sanjay Sharma was appointed by SEI to lead its Private Banking business division, the company said Thursday.

Sharma will be responsible for overall strategy and business growth by delivering comprehensive technology, operational and investment solutions for U.S. and U.K. wealth management organizations, the company said.

Sharma has been with SEI for 14 years, previously serving as chief technology officer. He was responsible for the firm’s global IT strategy, execution and delivery of all of SEI’s platforms and applications, including the SEI Wealth Platform and SEI’s cloud strategy, the firm said.

MSCI Launches Next-Gen Models

MSCI introduced next-generation MSCI Equity Factor Models that feature new crowding, machine-learning and sustainability factors alongside risk forecasting tools designed to adapt to market volatility, it said Wednesday.

The new models were designed to “help investors better understand the factors that drive portfolio risk and performance as market conditions change,” the firm explained.

Sustainability includes both an ESG factor and a carbon efficiency factor that MSCI said measures a company’s emissions relative to its size, while crowding uses multiple measures to assess how a stock is priced relative to its own history, and machine learning “leverages data science and natural language processing to evaluate the relationships between different variables that impact a stock’s returns,” it noted in a press release.

The four new models include the MSCI Global Equity Factor Model and the MSCI USA Equity Factor Model, designed for long-term investors, and the MSCI Global Equity Factor Trading Model and MSCI USA Equity Factor Trading Model for investors managing strategies with shorter investment horizons.

The new models will be available via multiple distribution channels, including Snowflake’s Data Cloud, select third-party partners and from MSCI directly via the proprietary Barra Portfolio Manager and BarraOne platforms.

The new MSCI Equity Factor Models also evaluate pre-merger Special Purpose Acquisition Corporations, expanding the investment opportunity set for investors as well as improving the calculation of some existing factors.

IVest+ Adds Crypto Trading

The latest version of the iVest+ trading platform for educators and retail investors adds the ability to trade cryptocurrencies by connecting an FTX U.S. account, the firm said recently. Included is the popular retail platform, Market Gear.

Clients can connect their FTX U.S. accounts and then make transactions directly from the platform. Popular features including Trade Journal, Trade Sharing, and Charting all work with crypto trades now, it said.