Flows & Positions
#Flows and Positions
FlowPro is a solution to a particular set of questions that investment managers and other investment professionals often try to answer when evaluating investment decisions. Various names for this set are in use, such as “investor technicals” or “supply-and-demand”; we use the most common: “Flows and Positions”.
Behind the questions is a belief that markets work in ways that cannot be explained by fundamentals, psychology, past price action or other approaches to understanding the drivers of asset prices.
We think that the way investment markets work in the real world inevitably and repeatedly leads to situations – inefficiencies, from a purely fundamental approach – where alpha can be generated by “those in the know”. Our aim at FlowPro is to put our clients “in the know” to the best of our ability in two ways.
Facts and Data
#Data Wrangling
The first purpose of FlowPro is to bring order to the chaos of flows and positions data. This is largely a data-wrangling or data preparation problem.
There are huge quantities of data on the movement of investment capital around the world, and the holdings, positions and allocations of investors. These data are the foundational building blocks for alpha generation, but they are not easy to obtain.
FlowPro’s first value proposition is that we will organise the data better, for a lower price, than anyone else.
We organise these as “Data Products” of different types and classes with common themes, such as data on mutual funds and ETF’s (“Funds”) or on the world’s economies (“Countries”), or on Asset Classes.
Insights and Judgement
#Insight
The second purpose of FlowPro is to bring human judgement to bear on the data, in order to help clients know what to do.
FlowPro’s second value proposition is that we will give an evidence-based recommendation to clients on the flows-and-positions questions that matter to them.
For example, we will make a call on whether we think positioning in a market is crowded / overweight, or otherwise. Or, for example, we will make a call on whether flows are strong and steady, or showing early signs of a reversal.