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Investment Research 101
Investment Research 101

Best practices for using the Discover feature

Updated over a year ago

Use TIFIN Wealth's Investment Research functionality to perform a "google"-like search across data received from Morningstar, Factset & Lipper (like prospectus', government filings like 10Ks & 10Qs, underlying holdings, and more).

How it Works

  1. Click to view “Trending Searches”, “Popular Themes” or search for something across the universe of Stocks, ETFs, MFs, CEFs & Models.

  2. When you run a search, the algorithm will filter through data and government filings (10Ks, 10Qs, and Prospectuses) received from FactSet, Lipper & Morningstar.

  3. A unique value add of TIFIN’s proprietary search algorithm is that it’s scraping data from not just the information available about the fund, but also the information on each underlying holding within the fund.

Filter Search Results

After an initial search is performed, there are a few ways to filter and narrow-down your search results:

  1. Include more variables in your search (i.e. a multi-variable search)

    • For example, instead of searching for “similar to SWPPX”, try: “similar to SWPPX with higher returns and lower fees”.

  2. Filter by security/investment type

    • By default, ETF, MF, CEF, and Stock are turned on (there are checkmarks next to these securities). To show search results pertaining to only ETFs and MFs, un-check CEF and Stocks.

  3. Filter by Asset Class or Philosophy

    • In the “Filter By” section, click Relevance (the default) to filter by Asset Class (multi-asset or equity) or Philosophy (active or passive):

  4. Sort your results

    • In the “Sort By” section, click Relevance (the default) to instead sort by Return, Fee, Risk or Volume.

  5. View more information about each investment

    • Click the dropdown menu under “Chart Type” > select to view Top Holdings, Fiduciary Risk (Fi360) scores, Sharpe Ratio, and more.

  6. “Rank using Selector”

    • Create custom sets of criteria in Selector and apply it to your search results by turning on “Rank Using Selector” and choosing which specific set of criteria you’d like to use.

Save & View Favorite Searches

  1. Click the “star” symbol. This will favorite your search for future reference.

  2. To view your saved searches, click the “bookmark” icon. A dropdown menu will appear. Click on the saved search you’d like to view. Click the “X” if you need to delete/un-save the search.

Select Investments to Compare

  1. Run a search in the Discover tool

  2. Click “Add to Selector” (the Shopping Cart icon on the lefthand side of each investment) to add the ticker to the Selector tool.

  3. After you’ve added just one ticker to Selector, you’ll notice the previously greyed-out “Selector” icon on the top right of your screen show the corresponding number (1). Keep adding tickers to the Selector tool that you’d like to compare.

Compare Using a Custom Set of Criteria

The comparison tool (Selector) defaults to using “Return”, “Risk” and “Fee” as the comparison criteria and assigns priority based on weight (50% for the first tile, 35% for the second, and 15% for the third). You can change the priority of this criteria by grabbing the corresponding tiles and moving them up or down. As you do so, you’ll notice the investments on the right-side change order; the best investment choice based on your priorities will surface to the top.

To create & save a custom set of comparison criteria:

  1. Click Magnifi Fund Selector > click Create New Selector

  2. Name Your Selector > e.g., “Large Cap Funds” if you’re putting together a list of criteria dedicated to sorting through large cap investments or “Global Investments” if you have a set of different criteria you use for international tickers.

  3. Click into the search bar to view/scroll through a menu of different criteria or start typing in a specific criterion in mind (choose up to 12 criteria):

  4. Click Equalize Weights to give equal priority to each criteria or manually change the weight > Click Save

    • Tip: Don’t forget to use the “Lock” icon next to each weight to keep the number from fluctuating when you make a change to another weight.

Generate a Due-Diligence Report

The next step after you’ve compared and selected your investments is to generate a report that can be used to standardize and document your selection process and provide due diligence for Reg BI. Other use cases advisors have used Selector’s report for have been for audits, to back up a recommendation to a client or prospect, and when reviewing or making changes to their models.

To generate a due diligence report:

  1. Click Generate Proposal to preview & download a PDF:

Proposal Archive

Copies of the due-diligence report are automatically saved in the Proposal Archive (found in your Settings).

  1. Navigate to Settings > click Proposal Archive

  2. Click the download icon under the Download column on the right

Enhancer

Use Enhancer to analyze a model or client accounts for possible enhancements and document your findings via a comparison proposal.

Enhance a Model or Account

  1. Select either a model or a client's account:

  2. Click on a Popular Enhancement or Search for something:

    • Filter your search by type of security:

  3. The results page will list each ticker in your Model or client's account on left and enhancement suggestions for each on the right (use the arrow to view all results):

  4. The default similarity measure is Fund Category. Change the similarity measure by clicking “Fund Category” and choose from Holdings Overlap or Return Correlation:

  5. To designate a custom/specific replacement for one or more holdings in your model or portfolio, click “Specify Custom Replacement” > Search for ticker > select a security from the dropdown menu:

  6. Once you have reviewed each of the enhancer suggestions, you have a few options:

    1. Click Performance Summary to view the impact (changes to expense ratio, fees, performance, up/down-side capture, etc.) on your current model if you go with the suggestions.

    2. Click Finalize in the bottom right corner to save your model enhancements & generate a Tradelist.

    3. Click Generate Proposal to download a comparison report (.PDF)

Compare a Model vs a Client's Portfolio

  1. Select a Client's Portfolio

  2. Select My Models from the dropdown menu > click Apply:

  3. Select a model to compare the client's portfolio to:

  4. Click Performance Summary to view the impact on your client's portfolio if they were to go with your model; click Finalize to apply the changes to the client's portfolio; or click Generate Proposal to download a PDF of the comparison:

Enhancer Output Comparison

To view the performance impact of the Enhanced portfolio changes:

  1. Click Performance Summary in the top right

    1. Assess key metrics of the current portfolio versus the suggested enhancements:

      1. Expense Ratio

      2. Annualized Return

      3. Annualized Volatility

      4. Upside / Downside capture

  2. Click Generate Proposal in the bottom left corner to Download a report outlining the impact any fund swaps would have on your portfolio.

    1. Note: If you don’t see your logo or disclosures in the document > go to “Profile & Settings” to upload.

  3. Click Comparison Report to download a .PDF showing all possible suggestions based on your query:

  4. Once you have analyzed each of the alternative fund options as enhanced based upon your search criteria, check the box for each replacement fund and click Finalize in the bottom right corner to submit your model enhancements:

    1. The changes will Save and you can Generate a Tradelist to input into an OEMS for execution.

  5. View the old and new version from Enhancer’s main page under either My Models (if you enhanced a model) or My Clients (if you enhanced a portfolio).

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