NEW YORK & LONDON, 11th August 2011 – In reaction to turbulent markets around the world, institutional investors have been using a record number of trade ideas to increase the speed at which they can decide which stocks to buy and sell.

TIM Group reported today that the buy-side has been using an average of 4,247 trade ideas per trading day this week – including a record 5,291 ideas on Tuesday.  As of the second quarter of 2011, the TIM Ideas platform had been averaging about 2,000 ideas per trading day.  In July, that increased to an average of 2,752 ideas per trading day in the last week of the month, then 3,553 in the first week of August.

During 2Q11, short ideas averaged about 34% of all new ideas.  In July, that figure jumped to about 40% during the first half of the month, as brokers, in retrospect, began anticipating the big market downfall.  This week, short ideas have been averaging 30%, as brokers have begun selective short coverings and buys.

“With the type of frenetic markets we are seeing this month, the only way a portfolio manager can keep on top of what the sell-side are saying is by having it sent to them in the form of trade ideas and using an alpha capture system to instantly see what the consensus recommendation is and to gauge the accuracy of all those making the recommendations,” said Colin Berthoud, Co-Founder of TIM Group.

TIM Ideas is the leading alpha capture system, used by more than 250 quantitative and fundamental buy-side firms to manage trading ideas on North American, European, UK and Asia Pacific stocks that have been sent to them from internal analysts and from more than 750 sell-side firms.

Contacts

Colin Berthoud, Founding Partner, TIM Group at +44 (20) 7826-4302, or colin.berthoud@youdevise.com;

Michael Shallo, Anreder & Company, at +212-532-3232, or Michael.shallo@anreder.com