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Equity research firm William O’Neil plans to focus on algorithms to deepen its presence in India.
The firm, which started operations in the country in November 2013, sees strong potential in the Indian markets — both in the longterm and the short-term.
“We definitely feel that Indian markets have a lot of potential, both in the shortterm and long-term, although our initial ride might be a bit bumpy owing to the current market conditions,” said Steven Birch, president CEO, William O’Neil + Co.
“We are very bullish on the markets and, hence, have acquired our FPI (foreign portfolio investment) licence to invest our US funds in the Indian markets.”
William O’Neil employs over 200 people currently.
Birch said William O’Neil sees itself as a manufacturing company and wants to build a large engine for these algorithms, with different risk return profiles and characteristics.
“We are moving toward algorithms for a lot of investment.
The days of a discretionary portfolio manager are limited.
We must acknowledge that people want value for their money and they don’t want to invest in a one-size-fits-all product,” said Birch.
“We have already built one algo for the US; for India, we have built five-six of themThrough our FPI, we will invest in these algos,” said Birch.
Birch said the service will be ready to be rolled out within a few months.
“We have algorithms and we will deploy them.
It could be $2 million-$10 million per algo,” said Birch.
In India, the company began as a data collection centre with institutional products and global equities, but now has an ecosystem in place that includes in-house market analysts, researchers, and senior industry experts leading key functions.
“Three years ago, we made a conscious decision of bringing our assets to India, like Marketsmith India.
Now, we have B2B partners like IIFL and 5 Paisa integrating the product with their own platforms.
We are also in advanced discussions with a few others for the same,” said Anupam Singhi, CEO, William O’Neil India.
The firm launched another product called SwingTrader India recently, which is a direct advisory for short-term trading in the Indian markets.
In O’ Neil Capital Management India, William O’Neil India might set up a portfolio management service for high networth individuals.
“Bill is a big, ace investor.
In reality, he was a technologist.
He used computing to do all his analysis.
And now we are taking it to the next level, just like the recent technology — machine learning and AI; they make it so much more predictive,” said Singhi.
