youDevise Report Highest Trade Idea Volume Post 3Q08 Financial Crisis

Expects to Cross 1.5 Million Trade Idea Mark in 2010

01st July 2010

youDevise Ltd. reported that during 2Q10 institutional sell side traders using its Trade Idea Monitor (the TIM) sent the highest quarterly volume of stock trading recommendations to their buy side clients since 3Q08, when the financial crisis resulted in record idea traffic.

Also during the quarter ended June 30, 2010, the TIM’s database of open and closed ideas broke the one million mark, demonstrating the TIM has achieved a critical mass of ideas for fundamental managers to assess the performance of their brokers and for quantitative managers to develop idea trading programs.

"Despite the stock market's recent weakness, TIM activity has remained robust,” said Colin Berthoud, founding partner of youDevise and co-developer of the TIM. He said this reflects:

The growing numbers of participants and the continued acceptance and adoption of trade ideas as a value-added, commission generating sell-side service.
Growth of shorter term trading activity in an environment where investors can no longer buy and hold, but must generate returns on a monthly basis.
Market events, such as the Greek financial crisis in April, the “flash crash” in May, and the market sell off in June.

“Our mounting database of ideas also reflects the TIM's inherent strength and value as a utility for tightly connecting the sell and buy sides," Mr. Berthoud said. “At the current rate, we expect to cross the 1.5 million idea mark by the end of the year.”
The volume of open and closed trade ideas sent in the quarter totaled 190,270, up 35% year over year and 7% greater than in the first quarter of 2010.

The number of sell and buy side firms using the TIM in April-June 2010 reached a net 649, up 29% year over year. youDevise added a net 30 clients in the second quarter of 2010 and 146 in the last 12 months.

Short ideas increased to 35.8% of new ideas in June 2010 from 34.1% in March 2010 and from the record low of 27.9% in December 2009. The higher the percentage of shorts, the more pessimistic brokers are about the markets.

Closed ideas increased to 51.4% of all ideas sent in June 2010 from 50.7% in March 2010. The higher the percentage of closed ideas, the shorter amount of time brokers are keeping ideas open.

From inception through June 30, 2010, total open and closed ideas in the TIM database equaled 1,039,638, up 67% from 621,339 a year ago.