youDevise Announces 500th Firm to Join Equity Trade Idea Platform

10th June 2009

youDevise Limited today announced it has signed its 500th participating firm for its Trade Idea Monitor (the TIM), launched in 2006. This represents another milestone for the development of the global network that facilitates the development and distribution of equity trading ideas from institutional brokerage firms to their clients, including hedge and quant funds, and traditional investment managers.

Recent growth has been particularly strong among U.S. and Canadian based firms, where participation has grown 100%, said Colin Berthoud, founding partner of youDevise and co-developer of the TIM. Including all major investment banking firms, approximately 150 buy side and 350 sell side firms worldwide now actively use the TIM. That is an aggregate increase of approximately 50% from a year ago.

Trade ideas are client-specific recommendations, used to enhance buy side performance and generate sell side commissions. Ideas outline what stock to buy long or sell short, how much money to invest, how to build the position, and the rationale. Unlike traditional sell-side research, which makes non-client-specific recommendations based on 12-month price targets, trade ideas are based on how the more immediate market and specific customers are likely to value a stock, taking all information into account and factoring in specific client needs.

Brant Securities, a boutique brokerage firm based in Toronto, recently initiated a trade ideas program using TIM. Hugh MacNicol, Managing Partner at Brant, said, “We were first asked to formalise our ideas by one of the European quant funds. We now use the TIM to capture all our ideas. Using the TIM, we can prove our ideas would have generated an absolute return for customers of over 20% already this quarter, outperforming equivalent index trades by 6%. The TIM has allowed us to focus our efforts in generating returns for clients, to the benefit of existing and new clients.”

TIM trade idea statistics for the month of May 2009 showed brokers significantly increasing their percentage of long ideas and the length of time that they are keeping ideas open, suggesting a more bullish bent.

During the month, long ideas represented 62.4% of all new ideas, up from 56.7% in April 2009 and from 60.7% in May 2008. This is the highest percentage of longs since 64.0% in January 2008. In another bullish sign, the duration of ideas less than one month increased 31%, to 6.80 days in May 2009, from 5.19 days in February 2009. New and closed ideas sent to clients via the TIM totaled 42,898 in May 2009, up 13% year over year, with new ideas up 10% and closed up 16%.

About youDevise Limited: youDevise Limited (www.youDevise.com) provides easy to use web-based technology that is transforming institutional financial markets worldwide.

CContacts: Colin Berthoud, Founding Partner, youDevise Limited, at +44 (20) 7826-4302, or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; or Michael Shallo, Anreder & Company, at +212-532-3232, or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The Trade Ideas Monitor (The TIM) from youDevise – May 2009 Data

Number of Participating Firms Continues to Rise

Percentage of New Short Ideas Falls

The percentage of new ideas for shorting stocks was 37.6% in May 2009 versus 43.3% in April 2009 and 39.3% in May 2008

Month to date June 2009, the percentage of short ideas is 35.0%.

Richer “Ideabase”

Total open and closed ideas in the TIM’s database were 592,287 as of May 31, 2009, up 5% from the prior month and 179% over a year ago.

The larger the “Ideabase,” the better the buy side can back test how individual broker’s ideas perform in different markets.