Liquid Goes Mobile with Risk Analytics App

LiquidMobile delivers both real-time and historical data, says Robert O'Boyle, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Liquid.

"It's designed for sophisticated portfolio managers, as well as for investors. It's all about consumption for improved decision making and understanding of the fund performance ─ where is that alpha coming from," O'Boyle tells Buy-Side Technology. "The ability to do real-time is incredibly unique in the market today, but what we also know is critical is historical data. All of our clients have access to real-time, as well as historical information. It's not just about real-time, it's not just about mobile, it's about getting the information that you need across all aspects of your portfolio."

O'Boyle says that not only are portfolio managers and traders in need of real-time risk information, but that investors are demanding more transparency and they want firms to move away from static PDFs.

"Gone are days of quarterly NAVs, month-end statements or T+1 reports ─ the requirement of the marketplace today is that the investor can see the performance of the fund relative to the marketplace. That's the No. 1 requirement," he says. "Hedge funds that don't have the ability to answer those questions when the investor asks lose a huge opportunity. Performance will always go up and it will always go down; the ability to help the investor understand why that performance is happening and what does it mean to them, that's the key to building long-term, trust-based relationships."

LiquidMobile had a beta release last year. The web-based app, which is device-independent, provides forward-looking P&L, performance, market and liquidity risk, and "NAV-light" calculations in real-time. Users can also run stress test scenarios so as to answer investor questions such as, "How does a price drop in oil affect my investments?" according to the New York-based vendor.

Additionally, portfolio managers can also access a library of exposure and risk metrics and they can customize their dashboards and reports. Users can verify the firm's official books of records with comparative NAV calculations and they can access the fund's trading activity since its inception.

For the launch, LiquidMobile will provide global listed coverage, with additional asset classes to come. O'Boyle adds that they are continuing to build out the company's risk analytics library and will add to its risk engine and expand the user's ability to mine information.