Look Through Analysis in Data Mart

Investment managers are increasingly investing in securities that are actually funds, such as exchange-traded funds, institutional mutual funds, futures contracts against market indexes, internal pooled funds and total return swaps involving baskets of assets. These investment types are sometimes called securitized funds.

Portfolio analysis is more difficult when a portfolio contains securitized funds. This is because most analysis relies upon descriptors like beta and bond yield that are available for securities, but not for securitized funds. So, securitized funds are often excluded from analyses and placed into categories such as Other or Unclassified.

Look through analysis solves this problem by looking through the shell of a securitized fund to the individual securities it holds, which are indirect holdings of the original portfolio. It then enumerates all direct and indirect holdings of the individual securities. Once this is done, all indirect holdings can be analyzed like direct fund holdings.

Another benefit of look through is to identify and quantify indirect holdings of problem assets that would otherwise be hidden from view.