blogs
11th April 2025
Portfolio managers and wealth management firms are under increasing pressure to deliver precise performance attribution and actionable insights. Traditional methods of performance analysis, often reliant on manual calculations and rigid...
blogs
5th March 2025
Creating a bridge between responsibility and results
Performance measurement focuses on the calculation of investment returns, while performance evaluation explains the sources of those returns. The first activity (calculation) lives in...
blogs
21st February 2025
Getting to the heart of your stock picking process
Many equity investors consider themselves to be stock pickers, and they generally describe their portfolio construction as a “bottom-up” approach. Their selection...
The Wealth Mosaic
27th January 2025
The wealth management industry is undergoing a significant transformation driven by advancements in artificial intelligence (AI). In an industry where trust, personalization, and accuracy are paramount, the introduction of AI-powered...
blogs
17th January 2025
Applying regret to the selection of active investments
Our research into regret risk has focused on the asset allocation process, with the goal of helping clients avoid “timing the market” based...
blogs
8th January 2025
Understanding each client's "regret tolerance"
Traditional risk analysis focuses exclusively on volatility as a measure of uncertainty - and while that is a good start, it is at best an incomplete...
blogs
24th December 2024
"Staying the course" amidst choppy waters
The traditional approach to investment management assumes that investors have equal levels of knowledge, and that they make decisions based only on facts and logic....
blogs
5th December 2024
Bringing common sense to a critical decision
We have all heard the expression: “Save for a rainy day.” Most people also “Save for retirement.” Both sayings describe accumulating money to be...
blogs
26th November 2024
Understanding the dynamics of passive investing
A broader set of performance factors
Many believe that passive funds are a nearly-invisible part of an actively-managed portfolio. These innocuous, low-cost samples of market exposure...
blogs
22nd November 2024
Imagine if every wealth manager had a team of tireless assistants—each one dedicated to mastering a specific task, working in perfect harmony, and continuously checking each other’s work to ensure...
blogs
12th November 2024
Expanding the opportunity set
Our “Team of Funds” concept makes the best use of a platform of active funds. How? By selecting complementary funds that offset each other’s short-term weaknesses while...
blogs
5th November 2024
Turning average funds into world-class teams
Goals > strategy > funds > team > performance factors
Our “Team of Funds” approach is an innovation that provides truly customised solutions rooted in each client’s financial...
blogs
28th October 2024
Turning your plan into a customised portfolio
At the start of our investment process, we defined our client’s monetary goals and tolerance for mission-related funding risk. We also developed a target...
blogs
21st October 2024
Beyond fund rankings: creating a winning team
We created a platform of funds that lets us turn any of our asset allocations plans into a portfolio of investments. Our portfolio construction...
blogs
15th October 2024
Focus on what drives results
Insights into the "why" of performance
We had taken the innovative step of customising our “team of funds” to meet our client’s goal of achieving an alpha...
blogs
10th October 2024
Providing clients with a deep understanding of their portfolio's performance is crucial. Comprehensive performance reporting that includes after-tax specific insights is essential for offering a holistic view of investment outcomes....
blogs
30th September 2024
For many wealth management firms, assessing investment performance is already a manual and intricate process. However, the introduction of tax-optimisation takes this complexity to an entirely new level. Measuring after-tax...
blogs
18th September 2024
From platform to portfolio: true portfolio construction
Our initial efforts in portfolio construction began with establishing a platform of funds. This platform of approved funds is the result of due diligence efforts...
blogs
22nd August 2024
Your platform of funds: inventory or treasure?
"Stocking the shelves" - the first step to success
Due diligence: a crucial part of portfolio construction
Before we can select the funds that deliver our...
blogs
14th August 2024
In an industry where traditional performance reporting often falls short, leaving advisors and investors in the dark about the true drivers of their portfolio’s performance, Risk-Adjusted Attribution emerges as a...
blogs
5th August 2024
Examining our baseline assumptions
Evaluating active investment performance depends on comparing our results to a representative market benchmark. This is “easier said than done” and yet the usual assumption is that...
news
29th July 2024
First Rate, a global leader in WealthTech providing AI reporting and compliance services for the wealth management industry, today announced its investment and strategic partnership with Fispoke, an innovative WealthTech company...
insight
17th July 2024
Intuitive approach to a key decision
Our fifth-and-final segment of this asset allocation saga is a radical departure from the typical approach to the topic.
We begin with this question:
“How do we...
blogs
10th July 2024
As many firms struggle to report on the complexities of ex-post risk analysis across their firm as well as scale these reports across large sets of accounts, having an efficient...
insight
5th July 2024
Moving beyond tradition
Our journey through the asset allocation process began with a fundamental idea: by spreading wealth across a wide variety of investment types, we create a portfolio with a...
blogs
12th June 2024
In the dynamic landscape of wealth management and institutional finance, understanding and mitigating ex-post risk is paramount. As firms grapple with the complexities of market fluctuations, regulatory scrutiny, and client...
insight
3rd June 2024
Part Three: Balancing Opportunity and Acceptability
Moving beyond the basics
Our first two articles explained the principles of diversification and its role in producing an adequate portfolio return while keeping volatility risk...
insight
10th May 2024
Looking inside "the black box"
Our first article in this series examined the fundamental principles of diversification, showing the benefits of increasing the number of complementary assets in our strategy. This...
insight
9th May 2024
We often refer to our holistic, client-centred approach as a “mosaic” of related components that includes the players, their goals and their perspectives (“the people part”) along with the investment...
blogs
18th April 2024
In the dynamic world of wealth management, accurately reporting on private equity assets while staying compliant with industry regulations is paramount. As the industry landscape evolves, so do the regulations...
blogs
10th April 2024
In recent years, Europe has emerged as a global leader in FinTech innovation, fueled by a convergence of regulatory reforms, technological advancements, and shifting consumer preferences. In this article, we...
blogs
4th April 2024
We have set a spending rate and developed an asset allocation with an expected return and risk that seems reasonable. We believe this approach should allow our organisation to continue...
blogs
1st April 2024
Navigating the dynamic realm of private equity and alternative investments demand a commitment to accurate and transparent reporting, a critical component for both investors and fund managers. As the industry...
blogs
26th March 2024
“The trustees of endowed institutions are the guardians of the future against the claims of the present.
Their task in managing the endowment is to preserve equity among generations.” - James...
blogs
21st February 2024
Financial innovation is at a crossroads, where data-driven insights, comprehensive reporting and AI technology are reshaping the very fabric of investment management. In an industry pulsating with dynamic change, these...
The Wealth Mosaic
12th February 2024
An aggregated client view that is visually pleasing, easy to understand, and contains usable data is much in demand from clients and advisers alike. Achieving that is, however, no mean...
The Wealth Mosaic
20th November 2023
The investment management industry is undergoing a significant transformation, fueled by the rapid rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation. AI applications, such as ChatGPT, Perplexity AI, or Bing AI,...
blogs
16th November 2023
The world of philanthropy is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by innovative technology that is empowering individuals and organisations to make a more profound impact. In a recent podcast interview with Stephen Kump,...
Podcasts & Webinars
25th October 2023
Earlier this year, we collaborated with First Rate to create a WealthTech Social event in Singapore, giving industry professionals a chance to discuss the new role of AI in the industry.
This session’s panel,...
blogs
Technology Evaluation & Selection
Technology Strategy & Consulting
23rd October 2023
We had the pleasure of hosting Pamela Cytron, President of The Founders Arena and a seasoned entrepreneur with a wealth of startup experience, on our latest episode. Together, we dove deep into the...
blogs
Digital Platforms & Tools
Investment Platforms & Tools
13th October 2023
In today's financial landscape, clients – whether individual investors, small businesses, or enterprises - seeking wealth management services are increasingly looking for advisers who can provide comprehensive financial advice. However,...
blogs
Market & Business Infrastructure
Risk Analysis & Management
18th September 2023
Understanding explainable AI technology
Explainable AI is a subset of AI that aims to make complex Machine Learning (ML) models easily interpretable by humans. Traditional ML algorithms, such as deep neural networks,...
The Wealth Mosaic
Investment Platforms & Tools
Market & Business Infrastructure
14th September 2023
This WealthTech Social discussion in Singapore was, with our support, hosted by John Choi, Managing Director, First Rate and Francis Oh – APAC CEO of Qraft Technologies. They discussed the role that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can...