Desired Features In Hedge Fund Management Software

By Adriana Noton

Hedge fund management software automates and integrates functions in the front, middle and back office, with the general ledger at the core of its functionality. An ideal system will be able to capture trades and integrate portfolio management with investor accounting to provide an end to end solution with real-time updates. But the real value is in the platform’s ability to work with different currencies and global financial instruments and derivatives.

Let’s take a look at the features an investment manager would want in this system. In the front office, it will provide real-time monitoring and order management. Scenario analysis tools and FIX connectivity to interface with brokers are definitely on the desired features list, and so are hedging overlays and modeling.

To provide some serious ROI, the system needs to be able to handle a wide range of instruments and all major currencies. This includes equity derivatives, futures and options, bank debt and swaps, and fixed income instruments like asset backed securities. If it can handle all these and more, the system will quickly out-perform comparable funds doing the same things with multiple packages and manual work.

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Starting with trade capture, the system needs to use a single data point of entry to populate and update all the other tools, automation functions and reports. The system takes care of order management and routing. It has to provide reconciliation and should completely automate corporate action processing like stock splits, coupon payments and dividends.

Full workflow automation all the way from trade execution interfaces to investor accounting allows the firm to take on more clients, higher trading volumes and additional products. A scalable system ensures that there are no additional overheads or staffing needs for this growth. Audit trails with pre and post-trade compliance are standard features expected in all hedge fund management software, regardless of who the provider is.

Most systems these days are able to plug in to market data and have a dashboard for reports. Once the trades have been processed by the front and middle office, the information has to flow into the general ledger. Since all transactions impact general ledgers, they can be used as data warehouses to generate reports.

More reports and filtering options will allow the investment manager to minimize risks with drilled-down exposure reporting and performance attribution categorized by strategy, funds, sector and trader. Realized, unrealized and net P&L should be visible for the day in question, month to date and year to date, not to mention open to date. The Profit & Loss data is automatically updated as the markets fluctuate and positions change.

Hedge fund management software won’t replace the investment manager, but it will soon become irreplaceable as fund managers learn to rely on it. A high growth strategy can be initiated with a range of new products and clients, all without incurring any new administrative expenditure. Note that a hosted SaaS package for investment managers is even more desirable, since it will eliminate the need to buy, install and maintain any IT hardware and software for this purpose.

About the Author: To help businesses to practice informed risk-taking, the leaders of

hedge fund management software

, provide practical risk intelligence through software that presents complex information in a fast and clear manner.

Source:

isnare.com

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A Dividend Trading Strategy To Maximise Your Contracts For D Ifference Trading

A Dividend Trading Strategy To Maximise Your Contracts For DIfference Trading

by

A Jessen

Imagine being able to leverage your current dividend trading strategy several times. For no more effort you can discover how simple it is dramatically increase your current returns. Uncover the truths behind Contracts For Difference Franking Credits and how to boost your current dividend strategy play. Contracts for Difference are remarkably easy to understand as they simply replicate the underlying share market so that any corporate actions on stocks happen to the CFD. Owning say 2000 HVN CFDs whilst the stock pays a 20 cent dividend means you will earn $400 on your Contracts for Difference account.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krKGMtpw9nU[/youtube]

Payment dates for CFD Dividends The beauty of trading CFDs for dividends is that you do not have to wait until the payment date like the normal stock market. Most CFD providers credit your account on the day of the ex-div date or the very next day. Multiply your dividend by 3 times using leverage In order to multiply your returns you need to start leveraging your account and CFDs provide this advantage. Most stocks only require 10% initial margin. As a result of this leverage you can dramatically increase your trading returns. For example you might normally buy 1000 National Australia Bank shares and receive a $600 credit but with leverage you might buy 3000 NAB shares, which allows you to earn a dividend credit of $1,800. Its like putting a super charger onto your Share trading account. Many traders simply forget about the power behind trading share CFDs due to the increased leverage you get. Remember leverage is a double edged sword and words great when you are winning but not so great when you are losing. Always remember to keep your leverage small when starting out and you’ll find you stay within a safe risk management guideline. Many new traders tend to get greedy when it comes to leverage and contracts for difference and severly damage their account early one. There is nothing worse than starting off trading with a big win as your confidence gets to the point where you think this is all easy. Well in actual fact it isn’t that easy as you need to have sensible risk management in place at all times. This actual applies to any leveraged product and especially so with Contracts for Difference. Especially when implementing a CFD Dividing Trading strategy. Do CFDs pay franking credits? Unfortunately the CFD market doesn’t pay any franking credits. 100% fully franked dividends simply mean you wouldn’t pay tax on those earnings as the company has already paid the tax. Stock market investors need to own the stock for a full 45 days prior to the ex dividend date in order to receive the franking credits. Don’t let sub standard returns hold you back. Add a Dividend strategy to your CFD trading and watch the increase percentage returns. Step up and build it into your strategy today.

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A Dividend Trading Strategy To Maximise Your Contracts For DIfference Trading