What tools would you use on your own?

Hypothetical scenario: You made a good chunk of change at a fund but recently left to manage your own money, say $10m, by yourself. How big would your budget be for different tools/resources, such as data providers, information flow, services etc, and which ones could you not proceed without? At what level do you think a Bloomberg terminal would be worth it? 

21 Comments
 

There are definitely more cost-effective tools than BB Terminal. You can also build your own infrastructure if you have a little programming and api knowledge

 
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I'm in Europe so the requirements are a bit different if I was looking to build a process on my own:

1/ One of: Bloomberg/Refinitiv/Factset/Sentieo or potentially Cap IQ (less good on EU news). All have excel add-ins. It really depends on which news feeds etc come through each one at the lowest cost. I'd probably discipline myself away from Bloomberg to avoid the IB distraction drug. 

2/ Quartr app. Small monthly fee. Great app for earnings season. Hopefully they build out a lot more functionality and can replace a lot of the ^^^ products at a compelling price. 

3/ Visible Alpha - best consensus estimates database and increasingly working on standardised metrics so may replace a lot of 1 above over time. 

4/ Macabacus....once you use this, you don't go back...

Nice to haves: Stream/Tegus, Alphasense (depends how much of Sentieo they keep in the product post full integration). 

If I was in the US and doing solely domestic - I'd probably just go for something like BAMSEC + Quartr Cap IQ/Visible Alpha to screen financials. It is a shame Koyfin does not have a good excel plugin. I just wish BAMSEC would build out Europe - $69/month for that would be a complete no brainer. 

 

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