Insight bricks from data clay

“Data! Data! Data!" cried Sherlock Holmes.

"I can't make bricks without clay.”[1]

Without the data, he continued (albeit in another adventure[2]), “one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”

From criminology to forensic metallurgy and sport, every field of human endeavour has been touched by the science of data collection and analysis, which was still in its infancy as Sherlock Holmes trod smog-filled London streets. We now have the data to inform choices and prove their validity wherever lurks the danger of fitting facts to theory.

SRP analysts understand how distributors, issuers and other end users analyse and employ structured products

Structured products is an exemplary case. With distributors’ fiduciary duties expanded to include whole-of-market and best-execution responsibilities, the comprehensive market view has been promoted from wishlist to necessity.

SRP has answered that call. It provides the only data source with a truly global picture of structured product issuance and sales. Its 30 million+ individual product cards, built over almost 20 years into an international database, span 3,172 issuing companies, 54 countries and well over $12 trillion in sales.

But it takes the guiding hand of human intuition to organise a data mass into the information underpinning real intelligence. SRP analysts understand how distributors, issuers and other end users analyse and employ structured products. Their insight has built the data store from the ground up. The key product features and events registered on individual product cards – underlying, payoff characteristics, issuance date, geography, sales volumes, key dates or events and more – are aggregated to be filterable and searchable from a web-based interface capable of running thousands of reports.

Now users have more than information. They have a business development tool, complete with intelligence on competitor activity, as well as best-performing and best-selling products, and product development trends.

Database utility doesn’t stop once a product is brought to market. Users can monitor lifecycle events such as barrier events, redemptions and coupon payments, and reinvestment opportunities following, for example, autocall redemptions. They also have access to independent valuations throughout the product’s life, a key reporting and risk management tool for distributors and advisers alike.

Arguably, we are living through a ‘new Victorian’ era with technological and communications developments once again supporting advances in the science of data collection and delivery. SRP’s API (application-programming interface) is a web-based application allowing clients to access, integrate and manipulate data from this single source via off-the-shelf or in-house systems.

This development allows data-driven end users such as hedge funds swift and direct access to the derivatives pricing intelligence behind issuance numbers and individual deals – the implied volatility in an investment bank’s structured products issuance, or commitment across a market or segment – on which arbitrage and other short-term trading strategies are based. This, as an IMF report puts it, helps hedge funds keep issuing banks ‘on their toes’.

The final piece of our jigsaw is our numbers brought to life in case studies, reports, news and analysis by an editorial team with a combined 50 years+ of sector experience. With the dogged attitude of a whole gang of sleuths its members adhere firmly to Holmes’s maxim: "The truth is preferable, whatever it is, to indefinite doubt."

Case solved.

SRP is the leading source of data intelligence on structured products globally, enabling you to plan for the future, gain market insights and compete strategically. Contact us to try a free a demo.