| System Title |
Securities Equity Research Reports -
Morning Note System |
| Client |
A mid-sized Wall Street brokerage
firm. |
| Business Goal |
Allow Wall Street securities
analysts to easily and rapidly generate and distribute reports to the firm’s
institutional and retail clients. Timing is of the essence, since the firm which gets
their analysis to the client first has the best shot at capturing the trading revenue.
These reports are essentially sales collateral material. Reports, also known as morning
notes, vary from a page to one hundred pages. |
| Complications |
High powered financial analysts do
not want to become computer experts in order to produce desktop publishing-quality
reports. Nor do they want to spend too much time answering detailed design questions.
There was a need for standardization of the reports without losing flexibility for the
requirements of different industries. Numerous legal and regulatory requirements had to be
met. There was a limited corporate PC infrastructure and budget and a low-speed WAN. Users
desired to have the system available almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week. |
| Our Approach |
We first implemented the report
generation on the analysts' desktops. Then we implemented routing and workflow routines
for electronic approvals. Next we implemented electronic viewing at the main office, and
subsequently at the branches, creating an efficient replication process. Distribution in
ASCII text to the financial services First Call and ILX was added, along with distribution
in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) to Multex and Research Direct. Lastly, web distribution of PDF
files was implemented. |
| Technologies Used |
Use of Windows for Workgroups 3.11,
Word 6.0, Visual Basic 3.0 and the Jet Engine 2.5 (the Access 2.0 engine). Heavy use of
OLE automation of Word from VB. Some use of Word macros written in Word Basic. Adobe
Acrobat PDF Writer and Acrobat Exchange. Various third-party VBX controls. Built
logo fonts. Developed system to update desktop software from network. |
| User Base |
There are over 100 analysts, junior
analysts and secretaries who generate up to 100 reports a day. They are read by over 1,000
brokers and their support staff. |
| Applicability of
Techniques |
The technique of generating
high-quality reports from database data supplemented with user-written text can be used in
a wide variety of applications. These include custom proposal generation and situation (or
client, or location or product) analysis. |
| System Description |
The analyst starts Word and creates
a New document based on a user template. The template invokes a macro that starts a VB
program. This program allows the user to specify the ticker and retrieve and update data
from an Access database. The analyst chooses a command to paste the applicable data into
the template. The analyst then completes the report by supplying prose. The
analyst then chooses a command to route the report to sales liaison for release to the
sales force and simultaneously for legal approval. Once the required approvals have been
entered, the report is distributed electronically. |
 
(Click the images to see the screen shots full size.) |
