Buy-Side Technology Awards 2016: Best Buy-Side Risk/Portfolio Analytics Product—Axioma

However, since 2013 no firm has spent more than one year in this category’s winners’ circle. LCH.Clearnet, SunGard and UBS Delta have all taken home the honors over the past three years, but none has been able to repeat their win, as the bar for what buy-side firms are asking for when it comes to risk and portfolio analytics continues to be raised.

This year it was Axioma with its Axioma Risk offering, a cloud-based, multi-asset class risk management platform that proved to be the best of the bunch.

“What sets Axioma Risk apart is its ability to provide a shared set of tools and analyses, its unique approach to risk resolution, and its secure and flexible use of cloud computing. Axioma Risk provides tools and analytics for all risk and portfolio managers in an investment firm, from top-level officers who report to the board, to risk managers and portfolio managers,” says Fabien Couderc, head of enterprise development at Axioma. “Axioma Risk’s unique approach to risk resolution also provides customized risk analysis for any strategy with any sort of portfolio. And it provides flexible, scalable cloud-based computing with multiple deployment options and guaranteed confidentiality for any type of investment firm.”

The New York-based firm added several features to Axioma Risk over the past 12 months, making it stand out in a competitive field. The platform now features a hedging tool to help portfolio managers make hedging decisions using optimization to create hedges that minimize the risk of the hedged portfolio while neutralizing undesirable exposures, according to Couderc.

Reinvestment strategies were also added, allowing for long-horizon risk measures to be computed so that assets expiring within the risk horizon are settled in cash or other assets. 

This year it was Axioma with its Axioma Risk offering, a cloud-based, multi-asset class risk management platform that proved to be the best of the bunch.

There is also the historical data proxy, which builds data history to mimic the market’s movement using the longer history of fundamental factors. The Axioma Commodity Model was also integrated into Axioma Risk and can be used with Axioma equity models in various calculations, according to Couderc. 

Instrument coverage for credit derivatives (ABX, CMBX and PrimeX), a basket option model and dividend index futures and options were also added, in addition to reporting features such as custom grouping, attribute derivation and comparison reports (through time, against different benchmarks, etc.).