Choosing investment instruments has become an increasingly complex exercise. The proliferation of funds, regulatory overreach, and clients demanding not only performance but also transparency all weigh heavily on the process. FIDAworkstation’s Quantitative Dashboard steps in as a compass for asset managers, advisors, and family offices: an analytical environment where one can build peer groups, design multi-criteria scorecards, and transform raw data into rankings and sophisticated visualizations. A method that makes every portfolio decision replicable, defensible, and communicable.
Navigating a minefield
Today’s financial advisor operates in rough terrain. The overwhelming number of funds, ETFs, and vehicles threatens to become an unmanageable maze. It’s no longer enough to glance at a few return indicators or cling to the comfort of a sector benchmark. Regulatory pressure, the transparency requirements of MiFID II and ESG directives, and the expectations of highly informed clients make the task of instrument selection resemble comparative philology more than portfolio construction. Every choice must be justified, documented, and above all verifiable.
Yet many professionals still rely on outdated tools: Excel spreadsheets, isolated product sheets, and ad-hoc rankings. It’s the equivalent of trying to navigate a stormy ocean with a rusty sextant.
The promise of the Quantitative Dashboard
This is where FIDAworkstation’s Quantitative Dashboard comes into play. It isn’t just another dashboard stuffed with numbers, but a comparative laboratory. The concept is simple and powerful: give promoters, asset managers, and private bankers a platform that enables them to move from passive observation of data to active construction of weighted, replicable rankings. It’s not software that makes decisions for the analyst, but rather a magnifier of their critical thinking.
From peer group to scorecard
The analytical journey begins with the definition of the peer group – the universe of instruments under review. This is far from trivial: deciding whether to include an entire category or just a handful of funds is already an interpretative act. The platform allows you to set a reference date, decide whether to normalize currencies or let each instrument “speak” in its own monetary language, and build the group using the internal search engine.
Source: FIDAworkstation
Once the perimeter is set, the analyst selects the lenses through which to examine the instruments. The richness lies in two dimensions: the variety of analyses (descriptive data, CAPM, costs, ESG, FIDArating, risk and return indicators) and the ability to assign differentiated weights to each criterion. This is the methodological core – the construction of a multi-criteria scorecard that reflects the analyst’s own philosophy.
Source: FIDAworkstation
Take a concrete example. An advisor focused on gathering assets might assign 60% weight to risk-adjusted performance (Sharpe or Information ratio), 20% to ongoing costs, and 20% to ESG parameters, aligning with the regulatory and reputational wave sweeping over asset management. A more cautious family office, on the other hand, could flip the proportions, emphasizing volatility and maximum drawdown over any promise of returns.
Source: FIDAworkstation
The role of benchmarks
Not all indicators stand on their own. Alpha and tracking error, for instance, only make sense in relation to a benchmark. The platform makes benchmark selection straightforward, producing relative measures that highlight the added – or subtracted – value of a manager’s choices. Here lies the analyst’s true skill: selecting the appropriate benchmark means deciding which “contextual truth” will serve as the yardstick for evaluating an instrument.
From tables to patterns
The analysis produces a table that might, at first glance, look familiar. But appearances deceive. The final columns – quintile, ranking, score – transform raw numbers into comparable, instantly interpretable information. The goal is not an endless list of returns and volatilities, but a relative positioning system that orders the observed universe.
Source: FIDAworkstation
The strength of the dashboard is then amplified in the visual dimension. Scatter plots, histograms, boxplots, cumulative return curves: the range of available charts offers cognitive tools that reveal patterns invisible in a plain table. A frequency distribution can show whether returns are the result of a few isolated spikes or broad-based solidity; a scatter plot lays bare the risk-return relationship more eloquently than any Excel cell could.
Source: FIDAworkstation
Source: FIDAworkstation
A philosophy of method
The Quantitative Dashboard does not claim to provide the “right answer.” Instead, it pushes the professional to make their assumptions explicit: which criteria matter most, which less, and why. In this sense, it is fully aligned with the European regulatory philosophy of transparency, accountability, and documentability.
Those who use it are not outsourcing responsibility to an algorithm. Rather, they are equipping themselves with a framework that makes their decision-making process both replicable and defensible. In a time when clients demand not just performance but also a compelling narrative, the ability to show a clear analytical path becomes a competitive advantage.
Monica F. Zerbinati
Richiedi la prova gratuita a welcometeam@fidaonline.com
