Riskalyze doubles down on fixed-income analysis

The bond market might be in the doghouse, but Riskalyze still sees growing demand for research and analysis on the fixed-income side of the portfolio.

The popular risk analysis platform that helps advisers measure risk exposures in client portfolios is more than doubling the size of its bond coverage by adding 800,000 individual bonds this year.

The platform currently provides risk analysis on 600,000 bonds across various categories, including municipal, mortgage-backed and corporate.

“By offering advanced capabilities when it comes to calculating and analyzing risk in individual bonds and other alternative investments, we are once again doubling down on our objective approach to getting risk right,” said Shari Hensrud, who joined Riskalyze as vice president of risk and analytics in January.

Asked about the appeal of fixed income at a time when bonds are representing a smaller portion of clients' portfolios, Hensrud said she was surprised to see the popularity of fixed-income allocations across the portfolios using the platform.

“Before I joined Riskalyze, I assumed the same thing regarding demand for bonds, but advisers are using more bonds than one would expect,” she said.

The increased focus on bonds is described as part of the ongoing buildout of the Riskalyze platform.

According to an announcement Wednesday, Riskalyze is also elevating its analytic capabilities through Riskalyze Stats to include 20,000 of the most popular separately managed accounts. The data team has expanded its securities coverage to other alternative investments, including over 4,000 new stocks, funds and exchange-traded funds, and more than 10,000 real estate investment trusts, unit investment trusts, structured notes and buffered ETFs.  

“Our team is constantly working to develop new ways to improve our analysis across different asset classes and investment solutions through deep methodology,” Hensrud said. “In line with our determination to provide the best, most efficient solutions, advisers can add these bonds to any client or model portfolio with just a few clicks.”

Tim Holsworth, president of AHP Financial Services, is one of those advisers who can’t find much nice to say about fixed income, but he does appreciate the expanded access to analysis.

“We were talking about a portfolio yesterday and we didn’t find any bond investments that we wanted,” Holsworth said. “The metrics are terrible. I think the analysis on bonds is great in terms of being more objective and more detailed and hopefully more accurate, but bonds have been a train wreck for a long time.”

Chuck Failla, principal at Sovereign Financial Group, said the enhanced analysis will help him make the case to clients that all fixed income isn't created equal.

“I really don’t think there’s such a thing as a good or bad return,” Failla said. “Instead, there’s only a return that is good or bad relative to the amount of risk incurred to get that return. A long maturity bond can sink like a meme stock if interest rates spike up. So any tool we can add to our toolbox to better understand the fixed-income risk in our portfolios the better.”