Investment Product and Service Launches

MSCI Insights Aims to Streamline Investors’ Risk Management Processes

MSCI Inc., a provider of decision-support tools and services for the global investment community, has announced the launch of Risk Insights, the first module of a new analytics platform, MSCI Insights, that calculates, stores and delivers a range of risk measures to help investors identify trends and respond to rapid changes in markets.

Institutional investors will be able to access a range of MSCI data and analytics through MSCI Insights, which will feature performance attribution, index data and ESG/climate data modules. Additional MSCI Insights modules are slated for release in the fourth quarter of this year and in 2023. 

MSCI Risk Insights automates many analysis and reporting tasks otherwise performed manually by risk analysts. Automation allows investors to efficiently understand the overall level of risk in their portfolios, the changes in the risk, the causes of the changes and the actions that can be taken to achieve their investment goals. 

MSCI Risk Insights provides investors with historical risk data and the ability to customize a set of dashboards containing a broad set of metrics, including time-series risk, factor risk and stress tests.

BrightPlan Launches Equity Compensation Planner

BrightPlan, a financial wellness firm, has announced its new Equity Compensation Planner, available as part of the company’s total financial wellness solution.

According to BrightPlan, the new solution gives employees the digital tools and professional financial guidance they need to view and manage their employer-provided equity compensation. This enables employers to better retain and engage top talent by demonstrating the value of equity compensation—a key component of an employee’s total rewards package.

Through its self-serve capabilities, BrightPlan’s Equity Compensation Planner seeks to enable employees to track estimated equity value in near real-time for public company stock, as well as view potential value over time and trading windows, so they know when they can trade their equity.

Employees also have access to tailored educational content to learn about how equity compensation works. The solution includes unlimited access to BrightPlan financial planners. Employees can link other investment accounts to BrightPlan and have the ability to see all their investments in a single place.

AllianceBernstein Launches Active ETFs

AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. and AllianceBernstein L.P. have announced the launch of a new set of active exchange-traded funds on the New York Stock Exchange. The new funds are the AB Ultra Short Income ETF and the AB Tax-Aware Short Duration Municipal ETF. 

Global trading firm Jane Street will be the lead market maker on both products. The AB Ultra Short Income ETF, an actively managed ETF, aims to deliver higher levels of yield relative to cash or cash-like investments, while aiming for capital preservation in all market cycles.

The AB Tax-Aware Short Duration Municipal ETF, an actively managed municipal bond strategy, seeks to provide relative stability of principal and a moderate rate of after-tax return and income. The ETF offers municipal bond investors a distinct complement to their core allocations, providing the opportunity to help maximize after-tax income and returns using shorter-maturity bonds and opportunistic exposure to treasuries and taxable bonds.

Vontobel Continues Multi-Boutique Expansion in North America

The active investment management firm Vontobel has launched a number of new strategies. The press release announcing the new strategies describes them as follows:

• The Vescore Active Beta Strategy invests in global equities and government bonds with a focus on tactical risk premia management through quantitative model-based allocation and risk management to help provide allocation attuned to the prevailing market environment;
• The Vescore Active Beta Opportunities Strategy employs allocation of five risk premia—equities, fixed income, commodities, volatility and currencies—to create robust portfolios that seek long-term, positive absolute returns, as well as diversification potential and liquidity;
• The Global Environmental Change Strategy provides access to clean technology pioneers by seeking to invest in stocks of companies with long-term growth potential that provide solutions for clean water, clean energy, future mobility, smart building, resource efficiency or recycling;
• The mtx Sustainable Emerging Markets Leaders Strategy invests across global emerging market equities, seeking companies with above-average quality in terms of return on invested capital and strong industry positions that are able to invest in future growth; and
• The mtx China A-Shares Leaders Strategy seeks to invest in stocks of companies characterized by high return on invested capital and strong market positions. Stocks in the portfolio qualify as either China A-Shares or are linked to China A-Shares.