MarketGrader welcomes fintech and software entrepreneurs Rob Foregger and Jim MacIntyre as strategic partners
New partnership will help accelerate MarketGrader’s mission to become the leading provider of next-generation smart beta investment solutions
CORAL GABLES, Fla., April 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — MarketGradera leader in smart beta investment solutions, is pleased to announce a new strategic partnership with Rob Foregger, Jim MacIntyreand their technology accelerator, Product Lab.
Foregger is a FinTech pioneer, co-founder of the digital advisory company NextCapital, the digital asset management firm Personal Capital and the online bank everbank.com. Foregger was also previously president of Fidelity Investments’ retail banking business. MacIntyre is a software and e-commerce entrepreneur who co-founded Visual Sciences and several other software companies. MacIntyre was previously also head of e-commerce technology for GSI Commerce. As part of the partnership, Foregger and MacIntyre will join the board, act in a strategic advisory capacity and take a minority stake in MarketGrader, giving it support from Product Lab.
“We have a laser-focused mission to help investors achieve superior risk-adjusted returns by identifying and owning the highest quality companies in the world,” said Carlos Diez, founder and CEO of MarketGrader. “Rob and Jim’s exceptional skills will help accelerate the scaling and commercialization of our unique intellectual property and platform across MarketGrader’s three core business lines: equity rating, index licensing and our new direct indexing service.”
Every day, MarketGrader rates over 41,000 companies in 8 regions and 92 countries through growth at a reasonable price (“GARP”) lens that screens over 24 fundamental factors in four categories – growth, value, profitability and cash flow. Based on its scoring methodology, MarketGrader builds and licenses smart beta index solutions for leading asset managers and fund sponsors. Key MarketGrader clients include Dow Jones, SS&C ALPS, VanEck and BMO. Individual investors and investment professionals can also access MarketGrader’s subscription-based stock rating services at www.marketgrader.com.
MarketGrader’s flagship Barron’s 400 Index, created in partnership with Barron’s and Dow Jones Indexes, which uses MarketGrader’s “GARP + Quality” stock screening methodology, has delivered superior returns relative to its benchmark index since it was first introduced over a decade and a half ago. The market capitalization-weighted version of the Barron’s 400 index has outperformed the S&P 500 index by 1.4% per year since 20071.
“Index investing is unequivocally one of the greatest financial innovations of the last 40 years, delivering a triple win for investors: low cost, tax efficient and superior performance – with actively managed funds underperforming their respective benchmarks in each of the last 13 years”, commented Forerunner. “But index funds, as good as they are, can be even better – more specifically, there are opportunities to create alpha over time through systematic stock selection that identifies consistent creators of economic value across all global equity markets. Smart Beta is where the puck goes, and this is the tireless pursuit of Carlos and MarketGrader.”
“MarketGrader’s disciplined focus on company fundamentals is particularly relevant in the current macroeconomic environment. Normalization of interest rates is forcing investors to focus on the quality of businesses and their profitability, and to look beyond the ‘growth-at-any-cost’ that drove capital allocation decisions and investment flows in the last market cycle. The bottom line is that the companies you own matter; the companies that make up your index matter,” Diez added.
“Carlos has built an incredible core platform – analyzing and scoring the world’s equity universe every night,” said MacIntyre. “We look forward to working with Carlos and the MarketGrader team to further scale and productize MarketGrader’s intellectual property, including expanding institutional and individual investor access to the MarketGrader platform, developing self-service index construction tools, and building direct indexing portfolio management capabilities.”
For more information on MarketGrader, visit https://www.marketgrader.com/.
ABOUT MARKET GRADES
MarketGrader.com Corp. (“MarketGrader”) founded in 1999, is a Miami-based provider of global equity analysis and index-based solutions. The company’s mission is to become the leading provider of next-generation Smart Beta investment solutions, helping investors achieve superior risk-adjusted returns by identifying and owning the highest quality companies in the world. MarketGrader’s proprietary “GARP + Quality” methodology is used to screen over 41,000 publicly traded companies in 8 regions and 92 countries, representing over $108 trillion in market capitalization. Over 50 Smart Beta indices are created using MarketGrader’s methodology. MarketGrader delivers smart beta solutions in three ways; 1) license its indices to investment management firms; 2) offer smart beta portfolio solutions to asset managers; and 3) provide access to their proprietary GARP + Quality assessments to retail and institutional clients. Institutional clients include Dow Jones, SS&C ALPS, VanEck and BMO. In 2007, MarketGrader created the Barron’s 400 Index in collaboration with Barron’s, America’s leading financial magazine. Follow MarketGrader on Twitter @MarketGrader and connect LinkedIn. For more information, please visit www.marketgrader.com.
ABOUT PRODUCT LAB
Product Lab, LLC (“Product Lab”) is a Reston, Virginia-based boutique technology, e-commerce and FinTech company accelerator – generating and supporting business ideas that will make the world a better place. We support the rapid development and growth of organically generated and independently developed portfolio companies. Product Lab offers legal formation and operation, capital formation and financial operation, design and development of services and software, development of human capital and operational infrastructure for its portfolio companies.
Media contact
Paul Damon for MarketGrader
+1 802.999.5526
[email protected]
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1 Performance of the Baron’s 400 Index (market cap-weighted version) vs. The S&P 500 index is based on total return between September 1, 2007 and March 31, 2023. Sources: Bloomberg, MarketGrader.
