Robert Huebscher's Advisor Perspectives provides free service to advisors. Advisor Perspectives wants to show how high- and ultra-high-net-worth investors are allocating their marketable-security investments. The new firm draws on a database that tracks about $50 billion in RIA-managed assets, with an average account size of about $1 million.

The idea is give fee-only advisors access to "revealing data about asset allocation and mutual fund selection" among high-net-worth investors.

"This data is not available anywhere else in the industry," says Robert Huebscher, founder and CEO of Lexington, Mass.-based Advisor Perspectives. "Advisor Perspectives is a window into the choices independent advisors are making for their wealthiest and most valuable clients."

Yardstick

Advisor Perspectives helps RIAs and financial advisors calibrate their asset-allocation and mutual-fund selection decisions. The service provides data for the entire universe and within different tiers based on account size. The highest tier, with an average account size of nearly $4 million, shows how wealthy investors are placing their bets. Users view asset allocation data by asset class and domicile, across dimensions of market capitalization, style, bond maturity, and quality.

Advisor Perspectives also ranks the most popular RIA-directed mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) among high- and ultra-high-net-worth investors. Users see which funds attracted the most assets based on account size, asset class, domicile, and other dimensions.

Huebscher says mutual funds selected by high-wealth investors tend to outperform their benchmarks.

The investment universe Advisor Perspectives tracks doesn't include alternatives or "held-away" assets such as those held in trust. Assets of this kind, including hedge funds and limited partnerships, account for around 40% of ultra-high-net-worth portfolios.

The service is free to advisors.

Huebscher has worked in the financial-service and information-technology sectors for about 25 years. He founded Thomson Financial's investment-software division and Hub Data, now Advent Software's Advent Market Data subsidiary.

In 2004 and 2005, Huebscher was an account-aggregation consultant to technology vendors and investment advisory firms. One of his clients was Woburn, Mass.-based financial-data aggregator ByAllAccounts.

Advisor Perspectives isn't saying where it gets the investment data it uses.

Advisor Perspectives also offers a free electronic newsletter that focuses on the way individual RIA firms use technology and the interplay of technology and investment management.

Advisor Perspectives expects to earn most of its revenue from advertising. -FWR

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