Demand for aggregating financial information and internal research in one central location has been growing. As hedge fund analysts look to manage information overload and several disparate manual research processes, an overlay of AI-processing power and content can cut research time to a fraction of what it previously was and help elicit more relevant insights.
Youssef Essaegh, Director, Product Management, Sentieo
Demand for aggregating financial information and internal research in one central location has been growing. As hedge fund analysts look to manage information overload and several disparate manual research processes, an overlay of AI-processing power and content can cut research time to a fraction of what it previously was and help elicit more relevant insights.
“Hedge fund analysts continue to waste hours a day on manual research – switching among disparate tools and sources, combing through pages of material, and compiling insights to share with stakeholders,” outlines Youssef Essaegh – Director of Product Management at Sentieo, “Point solutions and keyword search tools that put a band-aid on the problem aren’t enough to move the needle on generating alpha-driving insights faster to give funds an edge.”
Youssef notes how to remain competitive in today’s environment, fundamental research teams need to turn information into insights at market speed and their workflow into a competitive edge. This is difficult when teams are tasked with processing an inhuman amount of information, buried in manual tasks and processes, and using disconnected point solutions.
“The time is ripe for a completely new approach to financial research that is integrated, powered by AI, and tuned specifically to the language of financial analysis, so analysts get relevant results no matter what words they use. Sentieo is leading the charge in developing a financial intelligence platform that helps research teams surface, visualise, and share insights more effectively,” details Youssef.
In view of this, Sentieo aims to help hedge funds transform their working environment and workflows to better reflect their employee’s needs. Sentieo looks to do this by replacing disjointed research stacks with a financial intelligence platform built to make fundamental analysts more productive. “This way, our clients are able to address their frustration with legacy platforms, research management, and search providers,” Youssef says.
The appeal of the Sentieo platform is also growing in light of the current environment, according to Youssef: “Investment teams are navigating a very challenging environment in 2022. As we were entering the latter stages of a multi-year global pandemic, a new, significant geopolitical crisis has emerged, further complicating a stressed global economic landscape and driving significant market volatility.
This just serves to make the hedge fund teams’ day-to-day work more complex.
“Add that complexity to the mix of a highly-competitive space and ongoing pricing challenges, and suddenly a focus on how to drive more efficient “spends” of time and financial resources is front-and-center in the minds of leadership teams.”
This is leading to firms engaging with Sentieo due to its ability to aggregate millions of documents and enable faster, deeper investment insights. These then live on an integrated platform which encourages idea-sharing and collaboration across teams.
In addition, the interest in support for ESG research and reporting compliance is also on the rise. Youssef explains: “We brought more third party ESG content including news, research and ratings into the Sentieo Financial Intelligence Platform, and enhanced our search functionality with features dedicated to processing ESG information. That, and new ESG targeted note taking templates enable Sentieo users to more easily monitor and maintain their investment theses while accounting for ESG variables, or when reporting on ESG themselves address their reporting requirements.”
Youssef is director of product management at Sentieo where he is building innovative and time-saving tools to streamline and turbocharge financial research and analysis. Prior to Sentieo, Youssef was a top-ranked equity research analyst at Barclays, covering the technology and payment sectors in Europe. He has contributed to the structure of various complex financing deals and served as an advisor to several companies on their business model, plan, and valuation. Youssef has a Masters in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from French Grande Ecole ISEP, and a Masters in Finance from ESSEC Business School.