We learned from website TheMutualFundWire.com (MFWire) that the "portal wars" continue, as trading platforms continue to add functionality and features. A press release entitled, "State Street Announces Omnibus Trading Capabilities for Mutual Fund Clients," was posted Monday. It says, "State Street Global Markets, the investment research and trading arm of State Street Corporation today announced that broker dealer omnibus trading capabilities have been added to its Fund Connect money market fund trading platform, providing clients with a single contract, allowing for multiple funds to trade simultaneously."
The release explains, "Fund Connect is part of eExchange, State Street Global Markets' suite of integrated electronic trading solutions for institutional investors. Fund Connect allows clients to invest in a wide range of institutional money market funds from leading providers through a single, secure interface. Clients receive a consolidated view of their account balances, month-to-date accruals and daily fund statistics with the added benefits of pre-trade compliance, real-time execution and customized reporting. In addition to omnibus trading, Fund Connect supports both custody and fully-disclosed trading models which allow institutional investors to automate their investment process."
Cliff Lewis, executive vice president and head of State Street's eExchange business, comments, "The addition of omnibus capabilities to Fund Connect helps to simplify the investment process for our clients by providing a broad range of funds to choose from under a single contract. Our Transparency Connect and Virtual Portfolio tools available via Fund Connect also help clients using any trading strategy better understand the underlying holdings and potential risk in their portfolios. As volatility in the financial markets continues, it is increasingly important for our clients to have access to granular data about their investments on a daily basis."
State Street adds, "Transparency Connect is a risk management tool that analyzes exposures to the underlying holdings of fund investments utilizing criteria such as issuers, country, instrument type and maturity buckets. Clients can use Virtual Portfolio to evaluate how investment decisions will impact the risk profile and counterparty exposure of a portfolio utilizing existing exposures and scenario analysis on security-level holdings in more than 350 global money market funds."
Note: State Street's Fund Connect will be exhibiting at this week's New York Cash Exchange, which takes place Wednesday through Friday morning at the New York Hilton. (See http://www.tmany.org for more details.) Crane Data will also be exhibiting, and Peter Crane will be running a panel entitled, "Money Funds After the Makeover: Cash Investing Strategies" featuring Federated Investors' Debbie Cunningham and Barclays Stewart Cutler Wednesday afternoon at 2pm.
