AFTAs 2016: Best Analytics Initiative: Sell Side—Morgan Stanley

It’s a blatant reminder, if one was even needed, of the critical importance of effective and reliable analytics systems for portfolio managers that this category consistently receives a high number of entries, as traders across the buy side search for tools that can provide a clear view of market conditions, changes and how deals stack up against others, particularly in more opaque markets, such as securitized products.

Morgan Stanley launched SPG Access in the spring of 2016 to provide a new way for the buy side to monitor markets and analyze deal performance, in answer to existing problems around manual processes and monitoring for messages coming in from sell-side counterparties.

SPG Access was launched with two key applications: Biglog, a workflow management tool, and Clover, a tool specifically designed for collateralized loan obligation (CLO) managers, investors and issuers.

Bidlog provides workflow functionality for users to monitor activity in the securitized products market on a consolidated platform in real time. The system allows users to find bonds that fit into differing investment strategies by filtering through bond or underlying collateral information.

Clover, a specialist CLO application, provides a toolset to analyze and compare CLO performance within time and manager groupings across a variety of metrics, including equity returns, collateral quality tests, and portfolio performance.

Morgan Stanley, through SPG Access, has sought to provide control and improved efficiencies to simplify more operational aspects of front-line trading, by cutting out the manual aspect of tracking market information and developing in-house analytics systems.

While trading technology systems grow more and more complex under the hood, simplicity and ease-of-use are of primary concerns when it comes to the endpoint. Front-office trading personnel demand sleeker and more intuitive execution systems, still informed by real-time and insightful analytics to delve further into both trading decisions and behaviors. Morgan Stanley, through SPG Access, has sought to provide control and improved efficiencies to simplify more operational aspects of front-line trading, by cutting out the manual aspect of tracking market information and developing in-house analytics systems.