Non-Accredited Investors Offered New Hedge-Fund Alternative

A new ‘strategy marketplace’ allows investors to subscribe to quantitative investment models that bypass conventional hedge-fund requirements such as investor accreditation status.

Chicago (I-Newswire) February 24, 2013 - Portfolio123 is creating a new marketplace where quantitative strategy developers and investors can directly interact with each other. The name of this new platform is called “Ready-2-Go”.

Investment model developers submit their strategies to the Ready-2-Go platform which are then statistically analyzed and back-tested. The model developer determines the maximum amount of subscribers for that particular model and the monthly fee. Because the quantitative strategist is neither trading other people’s capital nor giving personalized advice – traditional regulations for hedge-funds do not apply. This allows quantitative strategists to directly market their ideas and models to the public giving unaccredited retail investors access to a market they were previously barred from.

For example, an investor might pay ten dollars per month to follow a smallcaps strategy with a certain backtested annual return and Sharpe ratio. The investor trades the strategy through his own private brokerage account and does not pay annual management or performance fees, is free of lock-up periods, has access to historical performance, can read a clear description of the methodology and has the ability to trade lower liquidity stocks where big funds have difficulty.

The Ready-2-Go models are being rolled out progressively and the current roster has 6 free strategies including Buffet and Piotroski inspired models. Each model page includes a minimum of 10 years of strategy backtesting, various performance and risk statistics, historical trades and a summary of the underlying strategy. Price slippage is factored into the simulations and real cash management rules are emulated. The goal is to give the best approximation of how the quantitative strategy would have performed without bias.

All strategies are automatic and programmed into the Portfolio123 quantitative engine - which does not contain survivorship-bias or look-ahead bias. Subscribers are notified via e-mail and online as to any model changes including the preferred weight of each new stock recommended. This process ensures all participants, including the model developer, are notified as to portfolio adjustments at the same time so as to prevent front-running or pump-and-dump schemes.