Products April 6, 2011

MSCI Launches Risk-Weighted Indices

MSCI Inc. has launched three risk-based indices.
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These alternatively weighted indices are based on three standard flagship MSCI indices and include the MSCI ACWI Risk Weighted Index, the MSCI Emerging Markets Risk Weighted Index and the MSCI World Risk Weighted Index.  

According to the announcement, the MSCI Risk Weighted Indices use a transparent process to capture lower risk characteristics than traditional cap weighted indices. Each MSCI Risk Weighted Index reweights all the constituents of a cap weighted MSCI parent index so that stocks with lower historical return variance are given higher index weights.   

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By emphasizing low volatility stocks in this way, the MSCI Risk Weighted Indices have historically exhibited lower realized volatility compared to their respective parent MSCI indices, while maintaining reasonable liquidity and capacity and a full representation of the parent index, the announcement said.  

The MSCI Risk Weighted Index Methodology is available at http://www.msci.com.
Products April 6, 2011

Actiance Introduces Compliance Tool for Financial Professionals

Actiance, a firm specializing in Internet-based security, management and compliance issues, has partnered with LinkedIn to broaden social media usage by financial service professionals.
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The partnership with LinkedIn, the largest professional social network, will give Actiance access to LinkedIn’s private application programming interface (API). Actiance customers will then be able to customize settings to be in compliance with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

Users of Actiance’s Socialite platform will be able to control more than 150 feature and content controls across LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. The controls provide businesses with the ability to set custom policies to meet regulatory requirements and mitigate information leakage risks and ensure that e-discovery needs are met, according to the company.

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“Especially for financial services firms, navigating the various electronic communications regulations from bodies such as FINRA, IIROC and the FSA can be very challenging in today’s Internet age,” said Sarah Carter, vice president of Actiance. “Our relationship with LinkedIn ensures Actiance customers will always remain compliant when using the world’s largest professional social network. We are able to archive, monitor and log all activity, from any device. Our customers gain the peace of mind that they will always be compliant.”

For more information, visit http://www.actiance.com 

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