SANTA MONICA, Calif., June 18, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wilshire Associates Incorporated ("Wilshire®"), a diversified global financial services firm, today announced qualitative evaluations have been added to Wilshire Compass MonitorSM, an incremental module to Wilshire CompassSM, the firm's PC-based fund management and consulting tool.
"This new product continues to expand upon the investment technology services available via Wilshire Compass and permits those fund sponsors that would like to further leverage off the work Wilshire is doing and combine it with their in-house investment expertise," said Julia Bonafede, president, Wilshire Consulting. "Providing our clients with meaningful information about investment managers is central to Wilshire's consulting services. Wilshire collects information on more than 33,000 investment products. To track institutional money managers, we employ both experienced manager research professionals and state-of-the-art technology."
"Wilshire Compass Monitor provides critical qualitative evaluations of more than 1,600 institutional investment strategies that have been scrutinized by Wilshire's manager research team, which is supported by the same quantitative tools and risk management that have been the foundation of Wilshire's institutional capabilities for 40 years," noted Charles Stunkard, managing director, Wilshire Associates. "Having access to the manager evaluations also allows our institutional clients to include qualitative evaluations along with all the rigorous quantitative analysis they may already be employing with respect to manager selection, and ongoing monitoring. It will be especially attractive for those institutional asset owners who want to manage internally more of the manager selection process," he concluded.
Wilshire Compass combines Wilshire's comprehensive databases with sophisticated investment technology developed at Wilshire over the past 40 years. Wilshire Compass is unique in that it provides users with the tools necessary to address all aspects of a disciplined investment process in one complete system, including:
- Formulate investment policy and implement strategies
- Monitor and evaluate asset class and total fund performance and risk
- Develop asset allocation and rebalancing recommendations
- Select and evaluate investment managers
- Analyze and optimize manager teams
All Wilshire Compass analytics can be tailored to fit the user's individual investment process. The product is supported by experienced investment professionals who provide user training and consultative support at a level not available with any other investment technology product.
About Wilshire Associates
Wilshire Associates ("Wilshire®"), a leading global, independent investment consulting and services firm, provides consulting services, analytics solutions and customized investment products to plan sponsors, investment managers and financial intermediaries. Its business units include, Wilshire Analytics, Wilshire Consulting, Wilshire Funds Management and Wilshire Private Markets.
The firm was founded in 1972, revolutionizing the industry by pioneering the application of investment analytics and research to investment management for the institutional marketplace. Wilshire also is credited with helping to develop the field of quantitative investment analysis that uses mathematical tools to analyze market risks. All other business units evolved from Wilshire's strong analytics foundation. Wilshire developed the Wilshire 5000 Total Market IndexSM and became an early innovator in creating the industry's integrated asset/liability analysis/simulation models as well as the industry's practical models in risk budgeting through beta and active risk analysis. Wilshire has grown to a firm of more than 300 employees serving the investment needs of institutional clients around the world.
Based in Santa Monica, California, Wilshire provides services to clients in more than 20 countries representing more than 500 organizations. With ten offices on four continents, Wilshire Associates and its affiliates are dedicated to providing clients with the highest quality counsel, products and services. Wilshire is a registered service mark of Wilshire Associates Incorporated. Please visit http://www.wilshire.com/.