Knowledge is power. That’s especially true when it comes to investing. Understanding the companies or securities in which you invest is an important variable in long-term performance, even for passive investors. “Just because you’re investing passively doesn’t mean you should be a passive investor. You need to understand what’s inside an investment vehicle,” says Peter de Boer, CEO of global investment research company CFRA.
CFRA relaunched its MarketScope Advisor platform to facilitate this understanding. The platform brings together in-depth, qualitative research on more than 1,500 equities, 11 sectors and 68 industries, as well as thousands of ETFs, mutual funds and bonds. It also provides quantitative analysis on another 25,000 companies. Financial professionals including independent advisors and leading institutional investors can use the platform to facilitate investment decisions, create portfolios from one of several models and compare portfolios side-by-side.
Whereas most investment research looks at past performance to make predictions about the future, the research delivered by MarketScope digs deep into the underlying variables that influence the performance of companies and investment vehicles. “We take a bottoms-up approach to get an idea of how a sector, industry, company, ETF and mutual fund will perform over time,” says de Boer.
CFRA’s research is backed by an independent team of 75 global analysts. Other research firms offer their own mutual funds, which can lead to biased analysis, says de Boer. CFRA, on the other hand, never manages or sub-advises on assets, which helps ensure that its analysis maintains a high level of integrity.
The relaunch of MarketScope allows advisors to access CFRA’s research in the way that best suits their specific needs. This quick, easy access to in-depth research allows advisors to be proactive about their investments, no matter what sort of investment vehicles they choose.
