Product Update: Upping the Ante with Axioma Portfolio Analytics

With the recent launch of v 7.7 of Axioma Portfolio Analytics and Risk Model Machine, Axioma Advisor took a moment to chat about the latest new features with Pam Vance, PhD, Vice President for Product Management.

Axioma Advisor: So, Pam, tell us what makes v 7.7 so exciting for clients.

Vance: Well (laughing), use of the term “exciting” may be overstating things a bit, though perhaps not for a geek like me! But I do think we’ve raised the bar yet again.

Axioma Advisor: Let’s hear it!

Vance: The big headlines relate to Analytics. We have really improved the workflow, so it’s much, much easier to set up the reporting for your performance and risk analyses. Of course, that also means you can now get those reports done and out a lot faster, which is a good thing, too. The workflow is now very streamlined. And it really makes a difference, especially for those clients who generate large numbers of reports on a regular basis.

Axioma Advisor: Tell us more!

Vance: I think the other big headline relates to the new GUI for the Content Builder. It’s a very easy-to-use and interactive environment for creating and testing formulas and, more importantly, to make sure you are, in fact, building what you want. So whether you’re testing some new factors for a custom risk model or the alpha signals you’re using in your portfolio construction, the Content Builder is a very effective, very easy to use, and very interactive environment for data-preparation.

Oh, and the other thing I would emphasize is that we’ve made it much easier to use the interactive views. Axioma Portfolio Analytics has always given clients the ability to look interactively at the characteristics of their portfolios over time, in terms of things like total risk exposure or exposure to particular factors of interest. The difference is that, in the past, you had to run a bunch of analyses up front in order to obtain those interactive views. Now, all those analyses automatically run in the background so you can access them right away.

Axioma Advisor: Just as an aside, but where do you come up with the ideas for these enhancements?

Vance: That’s actually a good question, and there are two parts to the answer. First, we work very hard to maintain an open dialog with our clients. That’s key. Obviously, the needs of our clients are constantly evolving and part of what makes our job challenging — and fun! — is making sure that our products evolve in step with those needs. At the same time, if I may say so, we have a pretty good product-development team here at Axioma. It’s our job to look beyond evolution. Our focus is innovation, plain and simple.

Axioma Advisor: And speaking of product development and innovation, anything you can tell us about what’s on the product horizon?

Vance: We’ve got two big themes going forward. The first involves combinations of functionality that leverage our expertise in both equities and our new multi-asset class platform. Our initial focus is on functionality that brings performance attribution and portfolio optimization to multi-asset class portfolios. So that’s pretty exciting.

The other big theme is helping customers who want to leverage the cloud for their compute-intensive processes. We are now developing architectural enhancements that will enable those customers to do just that, without installing their own infrastructure. So there are good things ahead and more to come!