Bond portal added to S&P’s MarketScope Advisor challenges Morningstar research offerings

The popular MarketScope Advisor platform from Standard & Poor’s has a new addition this week, a bond research portal.
In addition to all the latest news on the bond market, advisers will get access to screening and laddering tools to research and compare approximately 45,000 global bond issuers and more than 200,000 individual bonds, including corporate and municipal offerings and agency bonds, as well as Treasuries.
One of the key tools found on the new portal is the Bond Ladder Builder which is meant to assist advisers in creating bond portfolios and provide access to calculators while they are researching bond issues.
“That’s the unique thing about this bond portal; it represents a major competitive advantage for us because no one else is offering this sort of data in a way that is so easily digestible by financial advisers,” said Thomas Ryan, director of product development with Equity Research Services at New York-based Standard & Poor’s.
The bond portal joins MarketScope Advisor’s other multi-asset research modules that are focused on equities, mutual funds, options and exchange-traded funds and that compete with offerings from Morningstar Inc. of Chicago.
MarketScope Advisor, launched in December 2007, has 80,000 users and comes in many different product packages that vary broadly in price based on the numbers of subscribers at a firm and the specific content that is included.
The cost can range from approximately $600 to around $4,500 a year per user. The new bond portal is an add-on module that will cost a single adviser buying it à la carte around $800 a year — but again, as with the rest of the platform, prices vary based on the package and number of users.
For more information visit MarketScope Advisor online.

A new version of versatile spreadsheet mash-up Resolver One available

There’s a new version of the powerful Resolver One spreadsheet mash-up. The application combines the technology of a spreadsheet program with the power and flexibility of the programming language known as Python.
We first reported on the application when it was launched by London-based Resolver Systems Ltd early last year [link TK].
The new 1.6 version makes it easier to share spreadsheets with people who don’t have Resolver One through the use of free “player licenses.”
With these, others can use Resolver One in a mode providing access to spreadsheet functionality, but they aren’t privy to and, more importantly, can’t monkey with, the Python user code.
That means you can build spreadsheets and pass them on to other people, safe in the knowledge that they won’t have to buy Resolver One in order to use your work.
You can also switch your own non-player version into a player mode in order to see how it will look for other people.
There are several other features, including the much-requested ability to expand cells to grow and cover other cells below them and to the right.
You can also now place images in cells as well by simply setting the value of a cell to a .NET Image.
This is useful on its own, but when combined with expanded cells, your spreadsheets can suddenly start looking much more attractive.
A non-commercial version of the Resolver One software can be downloaded for free.
Version 1.6 is available for $200, which includes upgrades up to and including version 2.0.
Resolver continues to create useful screencasts on how to use the software as well as presenting an engaging overview of the product.
For more information visit Resolver Systems online.